PLANS for the new Basingstoke Town Football Club stadium will go on display next week.

As reported in The Gazette, the club wants to build a £10million stadium at Old Common Road, in Eastrop, if Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council agrees to a land transfer.

The plan is for the current Soccer AM stadium, in Winchester Road, to be redeveloped into a retail park, which will fund the new stadium and training facilities.

Club representatives will be available to answer questions at a public exhibition at Basingstoke Discovery Centre, in Festival Place, between noon and 6pm on Tuesday, October 7.

Members of the public are also being asked to give their views on the stadium plan to Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council by an October 10 deadline.

Town FC chairman Rafi Razzak said: “We are the club’s custodians and the new stadium is our legacy for the town for the next 100 years.

“We have some big ambitions for the future and the reality is that none of it can be achieved with the ground as it is, falling so short of league standards.

“The club doesn’t have the financial reserves to fund a redevelopment to the required level, so the only real solution is for us to sell the land, and use the proceeds to secure our future.”

The club said its current stadium, which has been its home since 1946, is badly run down, in need of significant repair and does not meet the minimum requirements of today’s higher leagues.

The new 5,124-capacity stadium would be built with parking to the west of the Hilton hotel.

The club also plans to provide The Costello School with an all-weather artificial turf training ground which can be used by the town between club training sessions.

But opponents of the plan say the stadium would lead to the loss of key green space near the centre of Basingstoke.