Razam
Coach
www.echo-news.co.uk/news/11791130.Blues_still_silent_as_fresh_stadium_plans_emerge
Southend United will draw up new plans for a west stand at its Fossett's Farm stadium.
The League Two team, which wants to build a 22,000-seat stadium at Fossett's Farm, off Eastern Avenue, said it will build the new venue in two phases.
The first will include three stands fitting 14,000 fans inside, and the second will feature a western stand featuring 8,000 seats.
Despite Blues chairman Ron Martin telling the Echo in July 2013 that a planning application for the western stand was & three or four months away, nothing materialised.
But chief executive Steve Kavanagh writing on the club's website, in reference to a training dome, to be located at the foot of the new stadium, said: The reconstruction of the dome is now subject to a forthcoming comprehensive planning application, as requested by the council, to include the club's revised plans for the West Stand at Fossetts Farm. There are exciting times ahead.
However he would not elaborate on the plans when asked by the Echo, while the club officially refused to comment.
Since getting planning permission in 2008, the new stadium has been beset by delays.
The scheme was further cast into doubt in December when Prospects College announced it was selling its site in Fairfax Drive, to a buyer other than Sainsbury's.
Sainsbury's is a major backer of the Fossett's Farm scheme.
The supermarket were going to build a new supermarket at Roots Hall, but needed to buy up the college site for the front of its new store.
Independent Ron Woodley, who is leader of Southend Council, said Blues officials briefed councillors last summer on a four-sided stadium plan, but there had been no detailed correspondence since.
He said: I called Ron Martin over Christmas to give him a gentle reminder of how much the fans and the town want this.
Everyone has been patient with the club and Prospects and we must get things moving on. I am trying to push through redevelopment that stalled in the recession in Southend.
I am very supportive of the football club and their proposals.
The stadium was given an extension on their 2008 planning permission in April 2013.
That will expire in three years' time.
We had no choice, college admits
PROSPECTS College will announce the new buyer of its site next to Roots Hall next month.
Sainsbury's - Fossett's Farm's major financial backers - needed to buy the college site in Fairfax Drive, as the entrance to their proposed store over Roots Hall would have been located there.
But after Sainsbury's backed out on a deal to buy the land seven times, Prospects College's principal Neil Bates said he had no choice but to sell elsewhere.
The firm he has sold it to is believed to be Lidl, but the buyer will be officially announced early March.
However, Sainsbury's reluctance to finally buy the site could scupper the whole Fossett's Farm scheme, as they were the major financial backers of it, despite a brave face being put on by the club.
Sainsbury's was offering £3.5million alongside the Blues in S106 cash to Southend Council to mitigate against loss of trade in the town's High Street because the stadium plans included a retail park.
Mr Bates said: If the council was asked it would now accept we have always acted honourably and in the best interests of the charity and we are therefore not responsible for the failure to deliver a new stadium.
