England: Scunthorpe admit new stadium stuck in limbo due to COVID-19
source: GrimsbyTelegraph.co.uk; author: michał
SUFC chairman admits in an interview that COVID-19 has “pretty much killed that at the minute”, speaking about the club's stadium redevelopment plans. However, planning and talks to make the project viable are ongoing.
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It's been over a year since Scunthorpe United were granted permission to redevelop their historical Glanford Park (now Sands Venue Stadium, for commercial reasons) into a new 11,000-capacity stadium. The project saw few updates since and in his latest interview chairman Peter Swann admits the pandemic has hit the project severely.
“Yes, Covid's pretty much killed that at the minute, hasn't it? We can't do anything and no-one's going to spend money in football at the minute, no-one's going to spend it on development.” Swann said.
At the same time Swann admits works on the financial viability and associated developments are ongoing. Part of the effort is delivery of housing blocks beside the revamped stadium, which is crucial to enable stadium reconstruction.
“But we are working closely with two or three developers, that still goes on and we've still got some other plans that we are hoping to put in which we will finalise certainly by the end of the year, which will show how we want the whole area to look like, and potentially a new training scheme.
“It's very difficult at the minute to invest in anything but it is there, we've done it, we've got our planning permission, which is a good thing, and hopefully we can move on with that but the first thing is we just need to get the fans back in and then we will worry about what the facilities need after that.” the chairman concluded.
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