Cricket
New Road redevelopment remains on schedule

Buy photos » The silt-covered outfield New Road this week. Picture by Marcus Mingins 0213012MMR4

BUILDING work on a 120 bed hotel at Worcestershire's New Road headquarters remains on schedule despite the disruption caused by flooding over Christmas and New Year.

A major clean up operation sprang into action at New Road this week as ground staff began to clear up the silt and debris left by the receding flood waters.

Despite two weeks of flooding, the disruption caused to construction work on the Premier Inn hotel and new club facilities has been kept to a minimum and the project is only a few days behind schedule.

The County has already been given special permission from the ECB to play all of its April matches away from home to allow time for contractors to make significant headway on the redevelopment.

And Pears chief executive David Leatherdale remains confident building work will have progressed far enough to cause only minimal disruption when cricket returns to New Road in May.

"We have lost a few days but we have built in a bit of bad weather time as part of the contingency so hopefully we are still on schedule," he said.

"We want our bit of the development, which includes the new entrance and non members bar, to be ready for around mid June and the start of the T20 before the visit of Australia in early July. The hotel is planned for completion around late October and should open around the first week of November."

A large crane is due to arrive at the ground today (Thursday) with work on the steel structure of the hotel set to begin in earnest later this month.

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