Chief executive Gary Sweet has revealed that Luton Town are changing their Power Court stadium plans due to the Coronavirus fallout – but that the Hatters’ new home will still be built without any delays.
The football club’s property arm, 2020 Developments Ltd, secured historic planning permission for a new 17,500-seat ground last January, but an unprecedented global pandemic has cast uncertainty across their sporting business for the last six months.
The Hatters have not raised any match-day ticket revenue since February, just before Covid-19 struck. Then a four-month suspension of all football matches was imposed across the country.
Games returned in June and Luton pulled off a remarkable Great Escape to survive in the Championship, sparing the club relegation, which Sweet claimed back in June would’ve have meant “financial oblivion” and a £6million black hole in their finances.
But those final nine EFL games (five at home) were all played behind closed doors, as was Saturday’s Carabao Cup curtain-raising victory over Norwich, with very little expectation that crowds will return soon, in any numbers.
Sweet, however, has eased fears that tight football finances could strike a blow to the Hatters’ plans to build a new stadium, though there will be changes to the more “desirable aspects”.
“It’s a real case of no news is good news,” said the Town chief, adding: “Just because we’re not talking about it every day, doesn’t mean to say that nothing’s going on. In fact, actually, it’s one of the most active areas of the business and my role at the moment is actually getting that going.
“Clearly, the Coronavirus situation has led to a situation where we need to rethink. Human behaviour’s different today than it was six months ago and that’s changed the markets.
“It’s not our will to change anything but the markets have changed. Demand for certain aspects that we’ve got planning for is just not there anymore.
“We have been rethinking how we can reshape that. So, there is a plan in pace now. We’ve got meetings going on with the council where we are restructuring some of that. Things that will become public in the not too distant future.
“But (they’re) things that, ultimately, that would mean we won’t see an eventual delay in terms of when we move into Power Court. It’s still going to happen.
“We may need to curtail some of the more desirable aspects of the stadium, just to squeeze that cost a little bit, moving forward but, ultimately, the supporters will still get what they’ve seen in the plans for the stadium, thereabouts.
“So, we’re quite excited with what we’re putting forward, with the view that, actually, we’re going to be putting something in place that is actually very deliverable.
“So, without talking about timings, because we’re not quite there with everybody else yet, but we are pushing forward.”
Sweet gave the update via video message as he unveiled the Harry Cornick as the Players’ Player of the Season 2019/20 during the Luton Town Supporters Trust’s virtual presentation evening tonight.
After a relegation-threatened first campaign in the Championship for 12 years, Town are preparing to open their new league campaign at Barnsley on Saturday, hoping to steer clear of drop zone struggles and establish themselves in the second tier.
Power Court is a major part in Luton’s long-term plans to sustain themselves on and off the pitch.
“We need it,” said Sweet, adding: “If we’re going to become, not just an established Championship team, without that, it’s going to be increasingly difficult, in some ways, year on year. So, we certainly need that plan in place and we certainly need to be moving to a bigger stadium.
“It sounds bizarre when we actually can’t put 10,000 people in Kenilworth Road at the moment. But, certainly, by the time that we build Power Court, we’ll be able to fit however many we build for.”
Sweet’s Power Court announcement comes after 2020 applied to the Court of Appeal, having twice seen the High Court reject their Judicial Review application over the approval of an Aldi supermarket next to their training headquarters.
They’d secured approval for a new supermarket as part of the Power Court stadium development planning application and 2020 have argued that those plans are threatened by the approval of another food store less the 1km from the site where their 17,500-seat arena will be built.
The planning application for the Aldi store on Gipsy Lane went before Luton Council’s development committee five times before being narrowly voted through at the sixth attempt in February.
Luton Town had targeted the site for an indoor sports dome training facility and have also seen a planning application for an alternative site on Cutenhoe Road deferred for more information by councillors earlier this month.
Property firm Hampton Brook, responsible for delivering the Aldi store, have blasted 2020 Developments for “continued attempts to block the delivery of this local Aldi for the people of south Luton.”
A 2020 Developments spokesman responded, telling Luton Today: “We feel the need to defend our position in this way because we have spent a huge amount of money and time to deliver Power Court and we are absolutely committed to doing so.
“Our recently acquired planning permission includes a supermarket and to be policy compliant with Luton Borough Council, we clearly need a supermarket operator. We cannot secure one at present because of the threat from a new one at Gipsy Lane.
“This then could have a knock-on effect on our ability to deliver residential on the site as well.
“The Aldi proposal does not have clear support from residents and councillors as claimed by Hampton Brook. An Aldi customer survey of 100 or so does not compare to the 12,000 residents that supported the Power Court planning application.
“In terms of councillors, the only time the Aldi application went to the full council it was rejected by a large majority of councillors. It is also totally against the Luton Local Plan adopted in 2018 by the whole council.”
