Club's new football stadium faces further delays

The football club is currently based on Harbury Lane in Leamington Spa

A football club may have to wait another six years for a new stadium, with further delays confirmed in a council report.

Leamington FC, currently located on Harbury Lane in the Warwickshire town, may not be able to move into its new stadium until 2031, despite council officers targeting a July 2028 opening in a presentation last year.

Doubt was cast over projections earlier this year when council figures showed £5m worth of funding for the project was not set to be allocated until the financial years 2027-28 and 2028-29.

Warwick District Council's cabinet will be asked to sign off on a series of actions to progress the development at a meeting on 3 September.

A new report has a refreshed timeline with "the earliest possible" move-in date being April 2029, with the caveat that "in practical terms, the completion is more likely within a range of this date and 2031".

It recommends the setting of a funding cap for the district council's contribution as well as permission to progress more-detailed design works, which would deliver "far greater certainty over costs".

Commitment to club

Councillor Jonathan Chilvers, in charge of resources for the authority, praised the club and the work it had done to make the social and economic case.

"The commitment we made to the club just under a year ago was that we would bottom out what we could afford as a council, what we needed in terms of public benefit to justify the investment and the likely timescales and project teams," he said.

"I am really pleased to have been able to do that work and give the club those really key assurances that they needed, and I am really impressed with how the club has worked with us to get us to this point."

When told a potential move-in date of 2031 may make some supporters question whether the project would come off at all, Chilvers stressed his commitment to not promising things the authority could not deliver.

He confirmed that "significantly more" than the £5m of Community Infrastructure Levy funding would go into the project but noted the "safeguard" of the spending cap.

The levy is paid by developers to the council to fund local infrastucture improvements.

"We can't put the total cost of what we think it will cost into the public domain because it still has to go out to contractors and we have to make sure we get the very best deal we can for taxpayers and the club," he explained.

This news was gathered by the Local Democracy Reporting Service which covers councils and other public service organisations.