Stevenage FC are due to present plans to the Borough Council in the next few months to replace the existing North Terrace with a new £1.2 million 1,700 seat stand, taking the stadium capacity to just over 8,000.
After announcing the details and exciting image of the potential new stand, Chairman Phil Wallace said “We must keep improving the facilities we offer to our fans – the partly uncovered existing North stand hasn’t been touched for decades and is way overdue for replacement. That is not acceptable to fans at this level of football and it’s certainly not a platform for future generations of fans”.
Asked how the stand will be funded Mr Wallace said “We have now re-invested all of last years windfall income in the West stand, the training ground and trying to push on, within our means, to go one division higher.
"Ours is a council owned stadium so we will have to work together with the Council to find the money. However, we would be best advised to do that sooner rather than later as the grants available for stadium improvements are being reduced all the time and it wouldn’t surprise me if one day they are no longer available. At the moment we believe we have a strong chance of getting some of the cost funded by grants, so we’ll have to be creative to find the rest together. What we cannot do as a Club or Council is convince ourselves it’s OK to do nothing".
He concluded "We’ve come a long way in the 12 years I’ve been here and we can’t stop now”