Hatters' planning application met by an '˜inevitable delay'

The club submitted plans for a new 17,500 stadium at Power Court along with the scheme on land adjacent to Junction 10 of the M1, to include offices, retail space, a hotel and leisure amenities, which were validated on the Luton Borough Council website back in August.

It had been hoped that there would be a decision on whether the Hatters would get the go-ahead to start building early this year, but in his programme notes for the Crawley Town clash on Saturday, Sweet wrote: “I would just like to briefly update you all with our planning applications. “As previously communicated, whilst our applications continue to be reviewed by the Council, we have been focused on making our representations in the hearings of the Local Plan examination.

“Our objective in this was to exit this examination unscathed, which I’m happy to confirm, we did.

“However, given the nature and timing of the Local Plan process, we will experience an inevitable delay of a few short months in the determination of our applications, just to ensure that our position is even more robust. I’ll provide much more detail in the next couple of weeks.”