In an exclusive interview for U's Net, Cambridge United director Richard Summerfield and general manager Colin Davies spoke to Will Jones today about the next stages in redeveloping the Abbey Stadium.

Firstly Will asked, "After yesterday's decision by the City Council to approve the plan to redevelop the Abbey Stadium, what has been the feeling inside the club?"

Colin Davies: "People in the club are very pleased, delighted in fact, and the club was a little bit quiet this morning because we were all a little bit stunned. We have had 15 years of hard work and waiting and thinking this day would never dawn, but it has. The feeling is good, but the mood was a bit reflective."

Richard Summerfield: "My cat was delighted! A 3-0 win on Tuesday and I didn't go home and kick it, and a 12-0 win yesterday in the planning meeting meant it was safe again!"

Will: "Obviously a lot of people will see this great news in the press and wonder about the time scale, and waiting for us to put the building of the stands into concrete action. What other obstacles have we to overcome, and when is work likely to start?"

RS: "Well, we hope they are not obstacles. There are various stages we have to go through. The section 106 agreement has to go through the lawyers, which puts into legal terms the conditions for this planning consent. At the same time as this we have an environmental study to look at the land we hope to bring back into allotments. This should all happen whilst the application is with the DETR."

Will: "And the actual time scale? A year has been mentioned in the press, is that likely to be an accurate estimate of the time it will take before work can commence?"

CD: "One of the determining factors is what we call the gardening calendar. The allotment holders wish to go onto their new sites by March 1st next year. That means we need to prepare those sites, and until they move onto those sites we can't get onto the land we will be taking south of the wall. If the various stages that we must undertake between now and then go smoothly then we would start the building process about this time next year. We need to build the south end first before we can take out the south terraces, and we would do that in the close season - between May 2001 and August 2001.

"The next stage after moving the pitch would be to start building the North Stand, and that is obviously the biggest proportion of the project. That is probably a 6-8 month building process, and it could start during the close season of next year. That is perhaps being a little optimistic. All that remains after that is landscaping, car parking and the roadway into Newmarket Road."

Will: "Of course, as Richard mentioned earlier, the application has to go to the Secretary of State before we are granted complete permission to build the stands, to consider whether or not to allow a change in use of the allotment land. At what point might this approval be received?"

RS: "This might sound a bit strange, but it has to go to John Prescott's ministry twice. The DETR has to approve the change of use for the land and then the City Council Leisure Committee need to finally decide to sell us the land and agree a price, and once they have agreed to sell us the land the application has to go back to the DETR again for them to approve the sale of the land from the Council to us.

"Again, if we hadn't reached the agreement with the allotment society it could have been a long and difficult process but now it should be a reasonably straightforward process. It is probably still a few months away though."

Will: "I have spoken in detail to Gary Harwood recently [see On The Spot Extra] about the funding of the venture, and a large percentage of the cost of the development will hopefully be met by the Football Trust. Gary explained that the £2m donation was not in question, but there is a possibility that the grant could be increased in special circumstances, and the club would be making an application. How is that process going?"

RS: "The bad news is that the Football Trust is coming to an end, and they aren't taking any more applications. At present they have more applications than they have money available."

CD: "We have been in good contact with the Football Trust, and that organisation is changing. They are being replaced by another body, and that will happen before the end of next year. We will make the best possible case for the most money we can get. There will be a shortfall of money that we will have to make up with fund raising and commercial activity and investment.

"We are all now looking forward to putting our efforts into something that will show results. I don't think there was any likelihood of yesterday not being a positive vote but up until the last two weeks it could have gone either way. There has been a lot of hard work, and we now look forward to putting in hard work that will produce something tangible."