Steve Waggott believes a combined training ground remains the ideal scenario for the club but isn’t currently on the agenda.

Rovers floated the idea of selling the Senior Training Centre at Brockhall for housing development to fund an all-encompassing training facility at the Academy site at Brockhall.

Those plans, published in February 2021, failed to receive the necessary backing and were shelved the following month.

The Senior Training Centre, and associated properties, were later sold for £17.4m to Venkateshwara London Limited, a subsidiary of the ultimate parent company, Venkateshwara Hatcheries Pvt. Ltd to remain compliant with Financial Fair Play rules. 

The proceeds are expected to be settled by June 2023, but was included in the yearly accounts to June 2021.

The club’s chief executive believes the integration of more Academy players into the first-team squad makes one site desirable.

But when asked if that was being discussed currently, he said: “Not at the moment it hasn’t.

“It’s becoming more apparent that with Jon and his backroom staff, we retained David Lowe, Damien Johnson and Ben Benson and they’ve integrated well and the balance is good, but the fact the Under-21s are up here constantly, the Under-16s are going up to Under-18s and the young players are getting great exposure at a higher level.

“A combined site, sometime in the future, at an available site that would be big enough, to me is going to be the way forward.”

The sale of the training ground in June 2021 and Adam Armstrong to Southampton in August 2021 has ensured that Rovers remain within Profit and Sustainability spending limits.

Waggott says improvement works have continued to be funded at both Ewood Park and the two training grounds, most recently on the playing surfaces.

“We’ve spent a lot of money at Ewood, getting it up to speed top to bottom, from the pitch right up to the iron girders above the stadium, and that at an enormous cost,” the CEO added.

“The investment there has been high, and similarly at the two sites at Brockhall.

“Fans accuse me of the fact that when I joined the club I said we’ve got three really good sites, and they are, but sometimes distance stops the full integration of what you want to plan, no matter how close you are.”

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