It was a good day for Bristol City football supporters yesterday, though perhaps less so if they also happened to be shareholders of Hargreaves Lansdown, the stockbroker.

Steve Lansdown, chairman of both institutions, raised £47.2 million towards Bristol City’s proposed new stadium by selling 22 million shares in Hargreaves Lansdown. Shares in the company fell 14½p to 212½p.

“Hopefully this shows everyone I mean business,” he said yesterday. After the sale, the equivalent of 4.7 per cent of Hargreaves Lansdown, Mr Lansdown retains 22.9 per cent of the Bristol company.

The share sale will not cover the entire cost of the stadium, planned for Ashton Vale, a short distance from Ashton Gate, the club’s existing home, in south Bristol. Some of the shortfall will be made up from the sale of Ashton Gate and the sale of debentures and naming rights at the new ground.

The club is hopeful that planning permission will be granted next month for a stadium with capacity for 30,000 people. HOK, the architect that designed Wembley, Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium and Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium, has been recruited. The club hopes capacity could be extended to 42,000 if England wins its bid to hold the 2018 Fifa World Cup – with Bristol, England’s seventh-biggest city, lobbying to be one of the eight hosts.

Mr Lansdown said he would not follow Dave Whelan, JJB Sports founder and Wigan Athletic owner, in naming the ground after his business.

“I don’t want my name near the stadium. It’ll be more like Emirates Stadium, I hope,” he told The Times.

Mr Lansdown hoped the new stadium would allow the club to become financially self-sufficient: “Bristol City Football Club has been here since 1897 and at this stadium since 1904. What that says is this is part of the community. It belongs to the city, not to the shareholders.”

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