Derek Bowden has dismissed claims that the academy is set for sweeping cuts, but admits that the club's youth set-up is currently being assessed. The Town chief executive has also ruled out the development or sale of the club's training ground.

Bowden told TWTD that youth development remains important to the club: "We are committed to the academy, so if people are concerned about us potentially not having one there are no grounds for that at all. But we have been reviewing the way the academy operates.

"We're not doing away with age groups, that's not possible if you have an academy. We are committed to an academy from U9s to U18s. You have to have U9s if you're an academy. You can't opt for an over-12 only academy, it doesn't work."

However, Bowden says the youth set-up run by Tony Humes is currently being scrutinised: "What we want is to have a very efficiently run academy and that's what we're in the process of looking at right now, and that's where this speculation has come from. We're talking to people at the academy about how we can run it in the optimum fashion.

"It's no different to what we've previously done in sales and marketing and in retail, and even with the first team. We would have looked at it regardless of any investment. We're looking at the best way to run our business across every department.

"If the objective for the club is to grow players that can play in the Premier League, or if they're not good enough for that level have some sale value in the lower leagues, then our view is that the academy is the best route."

Bowden, who joined Town from Saatchi and Saatchi in 2002, says there is nothing in reports that the club will be looking to sell or develop some of their Rushmere training facilities: "I don't know where that comes from. We own the freehold on Bent Lane and also on Playford Road, although it has something called 'overage' on it, which means the people we bought it from have a sell-on if we ever sold it.

"But no, we're not planning to sell or develop Bent Lane or Playford Road. If we got promoted we might put a new changing room block on Bent Lane itself, but that's an as-and-when we get promoted thing."

In any case, the chief executive says it would be difficult to build on the land: "It's designated playing field, so it's the most difficult category of land to get planning permission on, put it like that."

A number of off-field staff have recently left Portman Road and not been replaced, which Bowden feels is not a surprise given the overall financial climate: "It is not unusual at this point in the economic cycle for businesses to be making people redundant, we're not alone in that.

"The reality of what we have done is that we have lost a groundsperson, who has resigned to go and become a tree surgeon, and we will not be replacing him.

”We have also had an electrician who has retired. He has had a year here beyond retirement age and every year if you're beyond retirement age your contract is renewed or otherwise at the discretion of the club.

”We have taken the view that, lovely guy though he is, it's an efficiency we can make and his contract hasn't been renewed.

"The third speculative redundancy that was reported I don't know anything about. I don't know where that has come from."

Bowden says new positions have been created in other areas of the club: ”We've hired two new sales and marketing people over the last six months, so our count is up by one year-on-year.

"It's not a mass culling and I would dispute that it's part of an ongoing cost-cutting exercise.

â"We review our business week-in, week-out. If there's an opportunity to save cost, we'll save it, and if there are opportunities to generate new income through adding to cost, we'll do that as well.

"The notion that it's an 'ongoing cost reduction programme' is scaremongering and not really true. Since I've been here we've always looked at being as efficient as we can.

"The fact of the matter is that we lose £5-£6 million a year and so it's only right that we look to be as cost-conscious as we can in that context."

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