Tottenham faces difficulties with new stadium

The English Premier League club Tottenham Hotspur's plans of completing a GBP 400 million stadium by the 2013-14 season are not progressing as expected reports the Guardian,

National heritage groups and Haringey borough's police commander have voiced concerns about the club’s latest plans. Superintendent Chris Barclay, who is Haringey's acting borough commander, has stressed the need for the stadium plan to address the issue of “conflict” between rival fans in a six-page letter. He has outlined some of the "challenges and issues" that can impact the stadium’s security certification. Spurs expressed their agreement with many of the concerns and said, "We agree on the issues they have raised and we will enshrine them in the Section 106 [planning agreement]."

The club is also working with the English Heritage and the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment about the matter of the stadium's entrance from Tottenham High Road. The Spurs spokesperson said, "We are working through these issues with English Heritage and Cabe.” Revised outline designs have been viewed favourably by both the agencies. 

The council's planning committee is due to meet and discuss the application in the next two months and this gives the Spurs a very tight deadline. If the plans win approval by late September, Tottenham still has to face the issue of raising finances for starting construction on the ground. It is expected that a mixture of sponsorship, land deals, equity investment, loans will be used for financing. It is worth noting that even with things going relatively smoothly it took Arsenal 30 months to raise the funds for building Emirates Stadium and around the same amount of time to actually finish construction. This implies that Tottenham may have to wait until 2015 for the new stadium; and if there are any further delays it can also threaten England’s plans to make it an official venue of the 2018 World Cup, should the country win the bid.