Town CEO and chairman Mark Ashton says the training ground and areas of Portman Road outside the stadium itself will be the next main projects following the work carried out over the summer.

The Blues were required to spend “multi-millions” on getting Portman Road up to Premier League standards in the summer and Ashton says the focus will now move to the major renovation of Playford Road, where some work took place over the summer, including an extension to the gym, which was initially announced late last year.

“In the summer there has been millions spent at the training ground on what we would call small projects,” Ashton told Life’s a Pitch TV.

“We’re about to head into planning permission for the new build at the training ground. That’s going to cost anything from £20 million to £30 million. But that will give the first team state of the art facilities.

“We currently have the worst training facilities in the Premier League. That’s no one’s fault, our growth curve has been so quick, we haven’t been able to build infrastructure quickly enough to support that, so now we’ve got to do that.

“The academy, we’re going to go to cat one, we’ve started that process. The current first-team facilities will be developed and handed over to the academy, also giving the women better facilities. This is about developing a whole club for the future that we can all be proud of.”

Ashton says a new Cobbold Stand remains a project for further on down the line: “I don’t think that’s the next project. I think that we’re working on designs and plans for the medium to long-term on that.

“The club made a decision once before when it was promoted to take a stand down, the timing of that stand coming down will be key.

“I think the next major piece of work is probably the Astroturf, the front of house offices, the main drive, what we do with the land which was the old Staples building. We’re working through plans on those two pieces now.

“But the big next project now is the training ground and we need to focus pretty quickly on that.”

Photo: Action Images

JewellintheTown added 13:38 - Oct 10 Top bloke, carrying us forward in a well thought out and sensible, progressive way. 100% decent and 100% committed to our club & its best interests. Couldn't be in better hands. Love it how he tells us as much as he should do, no more, no less.
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Westy added 16:27 - Oct 10 I find these improvements very exciting after so many years of neglect. Will be interesting to see what is proposed. The sooner the better but there will not be the intensity or urgency as with the stadium improvements to meet Premiership standards, there will be multiple options in each case and the Club can be considered and choose the right one in each case.
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MVBlue added 21:19 - Oct 10 Careful with that spending now. Team and facilities are joint importance.
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Radlett_blue added 14:51 - Oct 12 Indeed MV Blue - Sheepy spent a fortune on rebuilding 2 stands & bankrupted the club.
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