U's director John Howard has explained the delay in unveiling his plans for a proposed new stadium for Cambridge United.

Howard initially revealed his hopes to relocate the club to a new community stadium in early April, when announcing that his company Bideawhile, which bought the Abbey Stadium for £1.9m in November 2004, had rejected then-director Dr Johnny Hon's £2.2m offer to buy the ground [article].

He indicated that he would be unveiling detailed plans "shortly", but today he explained to cambridgeunited.com why he has been unable to do so.

"There has been a further delay in announcing the site of the potential new ground, mainly due to the complex negotiations on the options to purchase the land from a number of different landowners," he commented.

"The price of the land, which is 46 acres, has all been agreed on an option subject to us getting planning permission, so that's all agreed and in the hands of the various different lawyers. With so many people involved it's complicated but that should all be signed up by the beginning of August.

"Work is on progress on the transport policy and the situation with the highways, and we hope to be able to start meetings with the planners at the start of September.

"I realise it's a long delay from what was said originally," he admitted, "but these things have taken a lot longer than expected.

"Anyone who has purchased or sold a house will know how long the process can take, and initially we thought there were only a couple of landowners involved but it turned out there were a lot more so it's slowed the process right down."

Howard added, "We (Bideawhile) have spent quite a lot of money with a highways consultant as well because that's very important before we go to the planning authority."

In a board restructure earlier this month [article], Finance Director Nick Pomery was asked by the board to take on responsibility for reviewing redevelopment and relocation proposals on behalf of the club, and Howard confirmed that Pomery will liaise between Howard and the other directors as the plans progress.

"Nick will report back to the other directors regarding the proposals. He and the rest of the board have been shown plans, although unfortunately we can't say where the site is until all the landowners have signed the options and we've seen the planners," concluded the U's Vice-Chairman.

"So it's progressing, but in a much slower fashion than we had anticipated. I hope to have more news for you in early August."

Finally, Howard admitted that he is looking forward to the release of the fixture list on Thursday morning: "It's a bit hard to get excited about some of the venues we'll be going to but everyone looks forward to seeing the new fixture list and I'm no different."

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