Luton Town FC safe standing project completed

The chief executive of Luton Town said the design of the new area was unique to Kenilworth Road

Luton Town Football Club has said its safe standing area for home supporters has now been completed.

The club had hoped it would be ready before last month's match against Manchester United but it will make its debut at Saturday's Aston Villa fixture.

Chief executive Gary Sweet said that game could now see the highest attendance of the season.

He said the Kenilworth Road ground was no longer the smallest in the league.

Work started on the installation of the safe standing area after the Hatters game against Bolton Wanderers on 7 January.

Away fans already had the benefit of a similar area.

Away fans have already been able to use a standing section

Writing in the programme for the Aston Villa game, Mr Sweet said the club had "challenged the market by installing a bespoke design into the Oak [Road Stand] - designed in-house and manufactured specially for our use".

"No such design exists outside Kenilworth Road," he added.

The club is due to move to the Power Court stadium and the club said it had received many questions about why it was spending money on a standing area in a ground it was planning to vacate.

Luton Town FC said the new standing area would pay for itself within a couple of seasons

Mr Sweet said: "Because of the increase in capacity, pay-back would be well under two seasons with the additional benefit of allowing more supporters into the stadium.

"This increase has been made possible by a number of strategies, including increasing the number of usable rows, decreasing the segregation zone, having all standing seats as allocated positions and losing one gangway."

Gary Sweet said the Aston Villa match was likely to see the biggest attendance of the season so far

He added that the extra capacity created by the project meant "today is likely to see the biggest attendance at Kenilworth Road since we took over custodianship of the club in 2008".

"Kenilworth Road took its fair share of derision in the summer for being the smallest in the division but that is no longer the case," he added.