Full details of Town’s redevelopment of their Playford Road training centre have emerged with their planning application now available on East Suffolk Council’s website.
A fortnight ago, the Blues announced that they had submitted planning approval for the works, which are expected to take from 18 months to two years to complete and cost from £20-£30 million.
The aim is to expand the first-team and women’s facilities and to bring the academy’s up to category one level.
The planned redevelopment, which only includes the Playford Road side of the 13.5 hectare site not Bent Lane, will include a new first-team building, refurbishment of the existing building currently used by the senior side, academy and women’s teams and a new groundskeeper building.
The most significant aspect of the proposed development is the new, state of the art training building for the first team, which will be located in the north-western corner of the site where the grounds maintenance compound is currently situated next to the pitch where U21s and U18s matches were played up to recent seasons.
The new first team building will be around 3,700m2 in total across two floors, designed to maximise views over the first-team training pitches, including outside terrace space adjacent to the dining facilities.
The facilities within the new building will include:
• Gym, pool hall (with hot and cold plunge pools, sauna, steam room and cryotherapy), treatment rooms.
• Press rooms, tactics and analysis presentation rooms.
• Kitchen, servery and dining spaces.
• Office and meeting space for managers, coaches, performance team and recruitment/analysis.
• Supporting functions such as ancillary changing and sanitary facilities, including laundry etc.
There will also be minor extensions and refurbishments to the existing main building, which was originally built for the academy but has gradually been taken over by the first team over the years.
The plans are designed to be future-proofed to allow for possible expansion at a later date.
The medium to long-term plan also outlines a review of the layout of the pitches to maximise the quantity of the playing surfaces and includes a show pitch with covered seating.
The main entrance to the training ground will continue to be on Playford Road but with new access off The Street, Rushmere for large vehicles, next to the new groundskeeper building.