Speedway team needs £40k for new safety barrier

Mildenhall Fen Tigers sat out of last year's season due to "reduced competition"

A speedway club said it needed to find an extra £40,000 for a new safety barrier to revive racing at its stadium.

The Mildenhall Fen Tigers, based at West Row, Suffolk, has been working to bring back racing after sitting out last year's season.

It has adopted a supporters' trust business model and had initially raised £10,000 for the revival.

However Steve Ribbons, the man behind the plan, revealed the track needed new and bespoke foam-block safety barriers following an inspection.

He said the owner of Mildenhall Stadium decided to make improvements to benefit stock car racing at the site, which the speedway club had "no problem with".

But the Speedway Control Board needed to inspect the track to ensure it was also safe for speedway.

"It was found the solid stock car fence was more solid than we anticipated and there were concerns over the ability of existing air fence... that wouldn't be good enough to help the rider survive an impact with the fence," he said.

Mildenhall Stadium was damaged last year during a fire

Mr Ribbons explained the club had applied for funding from Sport England and speedway organisations for the foam blocks, and would look to set up a fundraising page.

"The more we can raise from the wider speedway community and the fans, the less we have to borrow," he added.

The club initially wanted to be back racing by 3 May and, despite the setback, Mr Ribbons was confident speedway racing would still return in May.

"If we can stick to our revised schedule, subject to the manufacturers delivering on time, we only anticipated shifting it back to the end of May, possibly the beginning of June.

"That's the current state of play... let's see how this next couple of weeks pans out."