Thomas sets out rough timeline for completion of East Stand at Sixfields

Cobblers chairman Kelvin Thomas hopes the club will be in a position to ‘ramp up’ progress on the East Stand within the next month.

The club’s land deal with West Northamptonshire Council is close to being officially signed off and once all the legal paperwork is completed, work can restart on the East Stand. GRS Group company ISC were on site recently to begin preparatory works.

"We’ve obviously made the announcement that GRS would be completing the East Stand,” said Thomas on BBC Radio Northampton. “We have been working with them but we haven’t signed the contract with the council yet.

"We are very close and I’m hoping February will be a good month for that. I think we’ve basically agreed everything, there’s just a couple of bits to sort, but a tremendous amount of work needs to happen from a construction point of view in terms of plans and designs.

“We’re talking about a stand that’s been there for 10 years so we had to do an engineer’s report on the existing structure, which came back very good, and GRS came out and did a bit of land clearing behind the stand last week.

"They’ll be setting up a compound with some offices on the athletics track in the next month so we’re getting on with it. The plans have not been finalised yet because we want to wait until the contracts are officially signed off, but James (Whiting) and I have been meeting the architects quite a bit.

"Lots of decisions need to be made and we’re pushing for as many seats as we can. Hopefully next month we get that agreement with the council signed off – although don’t hold me to that! Then it’ll be a case of finalising the plans and getting them published. I think we will be in a place to really ramp up the communication next month.”

Asked when the East Stand might be finished, Thomas said: "GRS have given us an idea as to when the stand might be completed but it’s contingent on so many different things. As far as things stand right now, I’d like to think it would be done well before the end of next season.”