Truro City chairman: Club could fold if stadium world does not start

Peter Masters took over as chairman of Truro City in December 2012

Truro City could fold if work to build the club's new stadium does not start soon, says chairman Peter Masters.

The National League South club were given permission to build a new ground on the outskirts of the city in July.

But the decision is still awaiting approval from the Department for Communities and Local Government's Planning Casework Unit.

"Any further delays will mean the club will have no home, will lose its place in the league and will fold," he said.

The club have sold their Treyew Road ground to developers who are planning to build a retail park on the club's current home.

Plans for Truro's new ground at Silver Bow, and the rival Stadium for Cornwall which will be the new home of the Cornish Pirates rugby team, were both approved on the same day.

Truro City's planned new ground would be next to the A390

But Masters believes his team's new stadium, which he had hoped the club could move into by 2016, is being held up by discussions over the Stadium for Cornwall.

"We have all invested large amounts of time and money on this project, which has received the full backing of Cornwall Council and is now being delayed by government bureaucracy fuelled by hype and circumspection surrounding the Stadium for Cornwall," he said.

"The very future of the club playing football in the National League rests on a knife edge and is entirely dependent on the grant of planning consent at Treyew Rd," added Masters, who threatened to move the club to Devon in September if building work did not start soon.