AFC Wimbledon's Plough Lane development backed by London mayor Sadiq Khan

AFC Wimbledon have received a major boost in their pursuit of a new stadium at Plough Lane after the London Mayor, Sadiq Khan, handed back the decision to Merton Council.

Labour's Khan, who was former MP for the nearby Tooting constituency, has reversed the decision to 'call in' the League One club's application for a new 20,000-seater stadium on the site of the Wimbledon dog track.

Khan's intervention overturns a decision by predecessor Boris Johnson, who had granted the track a reprieve following Merton council's decision to press ahead with the Galliard Homes development in December 2015.

Planning permission will now be decided once again by Merton Council, who unanimously approved the football's clubs plans last year, and they are expected to reconfirm that decision in the coming weeks.

Mr Khan said: "I have taken the time to consult local residents, businesses and other interested parties.

"Having weighed up all of the evidence available to me I'm confident the stadium and the leisure facility proposed alongside it will be of great benefit to Londoners and the wider community for generations to come.

"As such, I have decided to return the application to the local council to determine itself."

It would move AFC Wimbledone back to the borough of Merton in south-west London from its current near-5,000 capacity ground in Kingston-upon-Thames.

The club has been there since its foundation in the ninth tier of English football in 2002, when the former Wimbeldon FC relocated to Milton Keynes and became MK Dons.

The move would erase the last arena for greyhound racing in the capital, however, which campaigners have warned will quicken the decline of an already ailing sport.