Town’s staff will move into a new office hub in the old gym at Portman Road in January, which is currently under construction along with a new boardroom.

Chairman and CEO Mark Ashton conducted a tour of the stadium on TownTV to show the ongoing work with the offices among the more significant projects.

The gym, in the corner between the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand and the West Stand, was built in the 1970s when the team trained at Portman Road but fell out of use after the players moved to Playford Road other than on matchdays.

“Originally, back in the day, this was the first team gym, some real famous names in the history of this football club will have trained in this facility,” Ashton explained.

“When I joined the football club, the club was really still at the back end of Covid and I remember probably a month or so before I officially started [as CEO] coming here for a visit and being brought into what was at a gallery that you could overlook the old gym that was currently then being used as retail storage space.

“And as soon as I saw this space, I thought ‘staff offices’, that this would be a great place to create a real professional environment for our teams, get them out of the old offices, that they’re in all around the stadium and bring them into one central hub.

“So it’s taken three to four years of planning and work to bring this to fruition, but by January 1st, when we returned from the Christmas break, all our Portman Road staff will be based here in the new offices.

“An elite environment which will give us the best chance to move forward at Portman Road. It’s something that I'm really excited about for all of our teams.”

Outlining why he wanted to bring everyone into the same area, Ashton added: “It’s really simple, it's part of our culture - an environment creates culture. When you have a team that if you like a disparate, located in all different areas of the stadium, to get them working as one cohesive unit is almost impossible.

“My staff will tell me I encourage my staff to get off emails, to get out their chairs, to go and talk to people, to have dialogue, to communicate. This brings everyone into one central space.

“So, whether you’re retail, ticketing, hospitality, legal, finance, you’re all working as one team, and your colleagues are sat in a first-class environment that, again, I think is just fit for purpose.

“We’re in an era when we need not just to recruit football players, but we need to recruit, retain and develop our own back office staff. And, as I’ve said before, the team behind the team here at Portman Road is really important and it’s time for them to get some first class facilities to work in.”

Ashton also revealed that the boardroom will be moving from the centre of the West Stand to the same area.

“When our US board are over and we have our board meetings, some board meetings will take place at the training ground, some board meetings will take place here,” he added.

“And, for me, it’s a little bit of a war room. It’s where I can get my senior heads in and we can brainstorm, we can talk about strategy, we can develop the club.

“At the moment, bizarrely, there are no offices in and around the stadium where we can do that, we’re trying to grab spaces here, there and everywhere, but this will be a room that’s dedicated to building the strategy for the football club.

“A lot of the important decisions will be made in here and I just can’t wait to get in in January now.”

Meanwhile, Ashton revealed that the car park behind the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand which has been under construction throughout the season up to now is close to completion.

The car park is on the land the club bought in 2021 which was previously the Staples and Better Gym site.

Photo: TownTV