Following the meetings and discussions we held in December, we know there is vibrant debate, discussion and a desire to understand what progress has been made.
We are entering an exciting and crucial phase, with the Plough Lane stadium construction well underway and the club and fanbase working as one to explore ways to fund its completion to the spec we all want to see.
We are committed to updating members and the wider fanbase as clearly and often as possible and a week into the New Year we felt it would be timely to bring you some news.
We have signed a Letter of Intent (LOI) with Buckingham to proceed with the next phase of works. This should take us up until the end of February. Further to this, Merton has now approved a new S96A planning application and this helps to keep construction on track. Not unexpected, but progress and timely nonetheless.
There has also been great progress towards the launch of a Fans Bond - thanks to a group of fans who have volunteered their time and expertise to get what looks like a great initiative off the ground. Things like this could really make the difference as we seek to bridge the stadium funding gap and we are almost ready to launch. Watch this space for further updates over the coming days.
Elsewhere we are working hard on external debt opportunities - and you can be assured we are exploring every option available to us as exhaustively as possible. We strongly believe that a successful fans bond will be of significant help here.
We have no further news on discussions with external investors. The survey on members attitudes to external investment will be delayed whilst our focus is on the Plough Lane Bond.
In the meantime we would also like to take the opportunity to say thank you to the anonymous donor who contributed £3,000 to the Trust this week - you know who you are even if we don’t!
We can assure you that there will be more news to follow soon and when there is, we will waste no time in sharing it with you.
Thanks to everyone who has offered to get involved and help us at this crucial time – it shows the real value of being a fans’ club. Please do look out for the bond campaign, share it and support it if you can.
Joe Palmer & Mark Davis