Hatters CEO more determined than ever to ensure Luton's new stadium at Power Court is built

Town chief executive Gary Sweet remains more determined than ever to ensure Luton’s new ground at Power Court does finally get built.

The Hatters received planning permission for a new 17,500 stadium back in January 2019, although since that date have seen plans to begin work pushed back by a whole number of unforeseen factors out of the Hatters’ control, including a coronavirus pandemic, spiralling costs and Luton’s promotion to the Premier League meaning Town have altered their proposal to house a higher capacity of just under 20,000 now.

Despite the numerous barriers they have had, and are still having to overcome, speaking to BBC Three Counties Radio this week, Sweet was totally committed to seeing the plans through, he said: “We are resolute, we are absolutely more determined now than ever that we will get it done. Firstly, never in our history not only have we been this far but never in our history have we had the obstacles, the challenges that have been set upon us from judicial reviews, to council restructures, to Covid, to a financial crisis, to massive hikes in steel and concrete prices, to gluts in the labour market.

"And recently things like specialist stadium contractors going bust, which have massively affected the risk in the marketplace from the contractors' point of view, that we need to navigate around and then to our promotions and those things, whilst they are all positive, do soak up an awful lot of our time. So with all of that, we are still here and it is still happening.

"I know people look at it and feel that there might be a little bit of delay, there is no real delay that things like a promotion, where we had to focus on the Premier League, and actually, a little redesign, because of the success we have achieved means that we can put a little bit more money into it directly. This is all for the better so there is no issue, we are really, really encouraged by everything that is going on."

With so much work to be done on the site to make it possible for a new stadium, asked whether supporters could expect to see an actual brick in the ground during 2024, Sweet continued: “It will come in two phases. Remember that there used to be two massive great big cooling chimneys on that site, there is a river that runs through the middle of it that needs uncovering, so yes we will be starting on all of those things like the groundworks and the river works and obviously the sub-station, that UK Power Networks are cracking on with, all of those things will be dealt with this year.

"Once all that's done, the stadium will go up pretty quickly we hope, so possibly not a brick as such this year but certainly all those groundworks. We are relying on other people to do some work before we can get on and start doing our material stuff but there are still a lot of groundworks going on, preparation for the proper groundworks and there will be an application very soon, specifically for those groundworks coming forward, which we will start this year. So we are not far away.”

Sweet was talking after receiving an Honorary Master of Business Administration at the University of Bedfordshire this week, having made history by being the club's CEO from the Conference all the way to the Premier League. On the honour, he added: "I'm so thrilled, I just genuinely don’t believe I deserve that. Football is a team game and we always say that every member of the team deserves the accolade and it’s certainly true of this one. If I could split it up in a few hundred pieces then I would.”