Cobblers have 'no set plans' for development land near Sixfields

Cobblers have 'no set plans' as how to best use the development land near Sixfields.

The club would own the 22 acres of land behind the East Stand if their agreement with West Northamptonshire Council, announced last week, is ratified in early December.

However, the priority is to finish the East Stand, meaning any future development next to Sixfields is potentially years away.

"The development on the land is a long way off," said chairman Kelvin Thomas. "We're talking about potentially 15, 18 months, two years.

"We don't have any set plans. We have shown the development area that we think makes sense and we've talked with the council about employment land in terms of warehousing and you see a lot of it going up.

"Northampton is a popular place for that because of the location and it makes sense for this site for where we are. We've looked at housing, we've looked at retail, we've looked at all of the different options.

"We will make decisions and talk to developers but the key for us was to protect the football club in the future and we feel we have done that. Some may agree, some may disagree, but we truly feel we have done that.

"We're comfortable and we're confident funding the stand."

Thomas lives in America but he's planning to spend more time this side of the Atlantic to oversee the project.

"It's a big project and I have talked about spending more time in England to see it through," he said.

"There are decisions to make but that's what we're looking at because we want to see this project through.

"It's a big build and it's a complicated process and we have to make sure we do it right.

"We see the football club as a whole. It's not owners and then the club, it's all the same, that's how we view it."

The Northampton chairman also praised WNC for their professionalism throughout the process.

He added: "Our responsibility is to the club and the council's responsibility is to the taxpayer of Northampton so they have done their due diligence and they have done their work and you have to commend them for that.

"We know what happened previously but this is a very different proposition because we're actually giving the council money, not the other way around, but they still had to do more on this deal than probably any other deal and that's understandable.

"We don't have an issue with that. It's a good deal all-round. It's one of those deals you can walk away from and go 'yes, we've all done OK out of this'.