Chief Executive Bob Symns has released the following statement regarding the stadium.

Talks between Peterborough United and Peterborough City Council in regard to Stadium Redevelopment took another giant stride forward. Complex negotiations on surrender and new Lease options, together with future planning opportunities, are nearing closure for final sign-off.

Both parties have spent many hours over a vastly extended period building a legal package that will incorporate current and future new stands, club ownership of the stadium and sustainable financial arrangements that will conclude and define the football club’s future.

The time that it has taken to reach this point in our talks has been particularly frustrating for all concerned, ourselves, the City Council and not least our supporters. We would all have envisaged the demolition and rebuild would have been well under way some time ago.

Pre-enabling works are completed, with the new floodlight system, new power supply and generators and Airwave technology transition all established, it has been the legal detail that has taken up so much time.

When talks were first held in regard to the new Moy’s End Stand development, it was considered that the process would be relatively straight forward, but as time moved on, consideration then evolved to include the redevelopment of the London Road End, The Main Stand, a new lease structure to combine all three stands, general planning intricacies involving the South Bank Development and the holy grail of the ground coming back to the football club.

As you can see, pulling all this together under virtually one Lease/Contract became massively complex and time consuming ... hence the testing delay, but the end is nigh.

Bob Symns.