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Ashton: We're Looking at Our Options On Land Behind Stand - Ipswich Town News

CEO Mark Ashton says the club is yet to decide what to do with the land behind the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand which it bought last season.

The land, to the right of the pictue above, is currently occupied by retail units which formerly housed Office Outlet and the Better Gym as well as their car parks and is next to the site where a Travelodge has been under construction.

"The short answer is no there isn’t,” McKenna said when asked if there was a hard and fast plan for the land at last night’s Fans’ Forum. "We acquired the land back in October, November time because there was a once in a lifetime opportunity to get hold of it.

"We’re working with the local council at the moment, [chairman] Mike [O’Leary] and I are actually in London tomorrow in regards to property meetings.

"We’re just looking at all our options at the moment, there’s no rush. We’ve acquired it, we’ve land-banked it, it’s ours but I think there’s a wider discussion with the local authority, be it how we masterplan the area around Portman Road and around the stadium.

"We want to make sure we get the long-term plans right. What’s really important is we have a master plan for the stadium, so the whole stadium works in its entirety.

"There’s no short-term plans. For us to do some of the things short term that you could use it for, it would be an extraordinary cost and it just wouldn’t be worth the value in doing that.

"We’ve banked it, we’re holding it and we’re steadily stepping through the plans.”

O’Leary continued: "It’s worth adding that it was really important that we bought that piece of land behind the south stand [Sir Alf Ramsey Stand] because we use it for lots of very important things.

"I’m sure many of you know that visiting coaches park there and at the same time, to maintain the south stand we need access to it and if we didn’t own that land, we wouldn’t be able to maintain that stand. That was crucial.

"As Mark says, there are lots and lots of different things we might chose to do with it and we’re just thinking about that right now, no rush.”

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