It's all a dream; Artist's impression of FF
The Evening Echo reported Friday that there will a further delay in the long running saga that is the building of Southend United's new stadium.
What Sainsbury's are making of all this we can only guess but it looks as if the council are just covering themselves in these tough financial times, better the rubbish gets collected that money put aside for an imaginary building project.
A statement from the now silent Shrimpers supremo Ron Martin might be in order.
Anyway, they wrote:
'Council finance bosses believe work on Southend United's new stadium will not start for at least another 7 months.
Finance chiefs at the Civic Centre are not banking on getting the £7.7 million as part of the Blues stadium deal and have left the figure out of the councils budget, which runs until April next year.
In a report for councillors, head of finance Joe Chesterton said, "The FF project has been removed from the capital programme until certainty of developer contribution can be ascertained"
Under the deal agreed by SUFC last year Southend council will be paid the money to spend on road and town centre improvements in return for granting planning permission for the new stadium. The first £3 million has been underwritten by Sainsbury's which will bankroll the FF development in order to build on Roots Hall. The first £500k will be due to the council from the moment building work starts. Blues chairman RM vowed earlier this summer the project would begin this month but work has still not started.
A new start date has not yet been announced although club insiders said January had been pencilled in by the planners. Finance chiefs are required to make predictions about expected income so the authority can properly plan for future projects. However a club source said the councils number crunching had no influence on the development. The club is still waiting for the authority to approve a time extension for its plans. The source added "at present the construction tenders are being analysed with the preferred contractors and we also await the related planning application to be considered by the council which we hope will be soon".'
(Edited from www.echo-news.co.uk; Friday, October 29th 2011.)
Oh well.
(Click on any of the articles below to catch up with the soap opera that is Fossetts Farm)