Sweet: Power Court plans are 'carrying on' despite rising costs

Luton chief executive Gary Sweet has urged fans not to get frustrated over any delays to the club’s attempts to move to a new ground at Power Court, revealing it would probably now cost £30 million more to build than it would have done three years ago.

The Hatters initially received planning permission for the 17,500 all-seater stadium back in January 2019, but have since seen their efforts to move away from Kenilworth Road delayed due to a number of reasons, with Sweet recently citing the ‘economic and political chaos’ as major factors.

The club had hoped to deliver a detailed planning application in the first half of 2022, but that has since been pushed back, and when asked for the latest update, the CEO said: “It’s cracking on.

“We’re living through a nightmare, look at steel and concrete prices over the last two years, look at interest rates in the last four or five months.

“All of those things make life more difficult for us but not impossible.

“We are carrying on, now that might lead to a bit of a delay, but please don’t get on our backs for a little bit of a delay.

“If we pushed the buttons on the contracts now it would probably cost us £30 million more than it would have done three years ago.”

Sweet also went on to admit that had the coronavirus pandemic not occurred, he believes Luton would be in their new surroundings right now, although declared 2020 Developments, the property arm of the Hatters, remain steadfast in their bid to make good on the proposals.

He continued: “If Covid hadn’t have happened, we’d have been playing in a new stadium possibly, or very nearly.

“These hurdles that have come across us have been really tough things to deal with.

“Starting from Brexit, that was a killer.

"These things have really hurt us, yet we’re still here.

"There have been plenty of infrastructure, large infrastructure projects not just in football clubs that were intended to happen back then that have now ended.

"Other businesses that are doing similar things to us, not necessarily in football, but we were aligned to and knew very well, they have folded.

"We’re carrying on.”

With Luton now looking to appoint a new manager after Nathan Jones left for Southampton this week, Sweet wants the successful candidate to take the Hatters into their new home, and in the top flight too.

He added: “Let’s be sensible about this, part of a pitch to the new manager is that this is happening and we want the new manager to be leading the football team out into Power Court in the Premier League.”