The Coronavirus football shutdown will delay Luton Town’s plans to build a new stadium at Power Court, Hatters chief executive Gary Sweet has revealed.
While there is uncertainty around the football side of the business, the club’s property arm, 2020 Developments, are putting a temporary pause on work around the regeneration schemes, plus the supporting development at Newlands Park.
This is after the EFL announced a three-week suspension of all football matches, which Sweet has confirmed will hit the finances of the Hatters and most other clubs ‘severely’, certainly into the hundreds of thousands of pounds.
“It doesn’t matter what business you’re in at the moment. If you ask the question, ‘is it going to have an effect?’ then absolutely,” said Sweet in regards to developments at Power Court and Newlands Park.
“How deep will that scar be? It’s certainly going to be a visible one and we are taking temporary pauses on some of those things at the moment, for sensible reasons.
“Especially where we may be committing to expenditure that we might not have, down the line. We do have to tread very, very cautiously and prudently at this time.
“In an ideal world it won’t change where we are with those developments and we will plough on. The world will still exit, of course, somewhere down the line.
“The best thing we can say about it is that it will delay matters. Who knows what effect that may have on the developments.”
Two months ago it looked like the club had jumped the final hurdle preventing them from progressing with plans for the developments, after Capital & Regional missed the deadline to appeal after the High Court threw out their judicial review application over Newlands Park.
The owners of The Mall shopping centre had been long term objectors to the scheme at junction 10 of the M1 motorway, which was initially unveiled to the public in 2016.
They garnered a UK planning record number of 11,000 letters in favour of schemes that are set to transform Luton to the tune of a £250million a year boost to the local economy and 10,000 new jobs, alongside a range of leisure, entertainment and community facilities.
But in 2017, Capital & Regional announced their intention to kick the plans ‘into the long grass’ and so they did.
Their final opportunity to delay the process passed in early January and Luton announced they would be “taking action to pursue the legal costs incurred through defending our position.”
The Hatters are due £15,365 in legal costs from the retail group, but this won’t scratch the surface of the cost of the suspension to football matches, which will starve the club of income, at least until April 3, though many believe this will be extended further.
Since January, 2020 Developments had been refreshing the plans and seeking new investment, citing the changing retail landscape and Brexit key drivers, to why fans wouldn’t see spades in the ground immediately.
But now Coronavirus has cast into doubt when Luton Town will be able to build it’s new 17,500-seat stadium, particularly as UK Government advice is that the peak of the disease won’t hit for potentially another 14 weeks.
