Premier League promotion will save Luton £40m on increasing Power Court capacity

Luton Town chief executive Gary Sweet has revealed that the Hatters’ season in the Premier League last year will save the club £40m when it comes to building a new stadium at Power Court.

The Hatters were initially aiming for a capacity of 17,500 that would then be increased in future years when unveiling their original plans back in 2016, before Covid hit and the application had to be amended several times. However, having published their accounts for the financial year ending in June 2024 recently, it saw promotion to the top flight in May 2023 boost Town’s coffers to the tune of around £115m, also enabling Luton to submit updated plans for their new ground that went straight in at a 25,000 capacity.

That application was given the green light by Luton Borough Council's planning committee back in December, which means that Town won’t now have to shell out any extra money on extending the stadium, as writing in his programme notes ahead of this weekend’s 1-0 defeat to Blackburn Rovers, Sweet said: “Our stint in the Premier League will provide the additional income necessary to fund the increases in costs for Power Court stadium, brought about by the extraordinary inflation on construction materials and labour over recent years.

"It will also allow us to accelerate the phasing of the construction, straight to a 25,000-capacity facility. Ultimately, not only does this accelerate our growth for the future, but it will also save us over £40m in abortive costs – not to mention the disruption – by not building through the three phases from around 17,500-18,000, which was the original strategy.”

Giving an update on just where the club is with the new stadium as well now, Sweet refrained from setting an exact time period on when he believes the first ball will be kicked at the ground, adding: “We are now entering a very exciting phase of the project. Before the season concludes, we will be announcing which construction partners we will be selecting to manage the build starting with a two-month PCSA (a pre-construction services agreement – akin to a trial period before the main contract) during which we’ll start to see some heavy machinery on site as we prepare to pile. So far, everything is basically on track. Naturally, the one question everyone wants to know is when we’ll be kicking off in our first league game in our new home.

"Also naturally, it would be imprudent for me to publicly announce this before we complete the PCSA other than to say that we are progressing very well, and we are desperate to move in more than anyone! However, we can’t bury our heads in the sand with current global affairs highlighting a potential risk in many industry sectors which is completely outside of our control, so, confident though we remain of hitting our target programme, I’m sure you’ll understand if we didn’t entirely commit to a date at this stage.”