Rovers have concluded that there are no covenants placed on the land where their Senior Training Centre stands that would prevent it being sold to a housing developer.

The club have outlined their intentions to sell the Senior Training Centre land, next to The Avenue Hotel in Old Langho, to finance an all-in-one training facility where their Academy base is in Brockhall Village.

Steve Waggott was asked about possible covenants that may block the building of housing on the STC site by the Lancashire Telegraph last month, with the CEO outlining that research was being undertaken by the club’s legal team.

In a meeting with Rovers Trust, Waggott says that has now been finalised and no covenants are placed on either site, however, building housing on the Academy site would be prevented due to being on green field land.

The Academy site was built in 1993, while the second site, at the STC, came eight years later.

“I’ve got our legal team to interrogate the different transfer sale documents,” Waggott told the meeting.

“There were negative covenants on the original lower site and you couldn’t build the actual training facilities club house more than 9,300 square feet but this fell away seven years after the sale took place in 1993.

“On the upper site, with all our research, it hasn’t shown up any negative covenants to stop a residential project proposal being carried out on the site.”

A document submitted to Ribble Valley Borough Council by Planning Developers Peacock & Smith had previously outlined the STC land came within the defined ‘development limits’ for Brockhall Village.

Rovers Trust had previously tried to list the two sites as Brockhall as assets of community value in 2017 but saw their application opposed by the club, and later rejected by Ribble Valley Borough Council due to it being a private facility.

An ACV would have acted as a barrier to the sale of the land without notice being given to any community interest group who would have had the opportunity to be a potential bidder.

A week-long public consultation will begin today, with two planning applications having been outlined by the club that are linked, so the building of the new facility at the Academy site wouldn’t take place without the sale of the STC, and vice-versa.

The current applications are at the screening opinion stage, a process by which the club will learn whether they need an Environmental Impact Assessment before planning permission is sought.

Waggott re-iterated again that 100 per cent of the sale of the STC, should it go ahead, would be put towards the building of the new facility, but said that the costs involved are currently unknown.

He said any additional top-ups to the project would come from owners Venky’s.

However, Waggott stressed that the decision to integrate their facilities was a club decision, and not motivated by finance.

He said: “I can categorically state that Venky’s have not asked us to raise money by selling the land for development.

“In the pre-planning process request we didn’t have to link the two, I insisted that they were.

“So that one can’t happen without the other, I don’t want to be accused of asset stripping that’s not what I`m about, I am about trying to push the club forwards. Category One is absolutely essential to this club, it costs the club £1.9m a year to maintain, with a top up grant for £1.2m. It’s a £3m operation.”

The academy site spans 7.82 hectares, slightly bigger than the land on which the STC sits, with the new building said to take up 0.72 hectares. Some supporters have raised concerns about the viability of the Academy base being able to accommodate an all-in-one facility, and meet the requirements of the Category One Academy status.

It would likely see the loss of three pitches to make that happen, and Waggott admitted: “There’s a few challenges if the project gets the green light.

He added:  “The restrictions on the first team are imposed by the club, whereas the Academy’s is imposed by an external body, the Premier League.

“The facilities are nearly 30 years old they are tired, they are good don’t get me wrong, they service the basic needs of what we want. The split site, even though we bring the Under-18s and Under-23 up, it would work better if the manager can see all the players together on nearby pitches.”

The public consultation is now underway, with outline proposals, and feedback forms, available via the roverstogetheratbrockhall.uk website