Dundee stadium move held up by lack of funding, says Dark Blues chief

Managing director John Nelms has confessed Dundee’s move to a new stadium is being held up by money.

The Dark Blues confirmed 16 months ago their intention to leave Dens Park and move to a purpose-built stadium and training facility, plus housing, retail units and a crematorium, close to the city’s Camperdown Park.

Hundreds of fans took part in a consultation when the proposals were publicly unveiled in September last year and a formal planning application was expected to be submitted to Dundee City Council last December.

Concerns have been raised over access to the site but Dundee insist the switch is necessary due to the limitations and costs of staying at Dens Park.

However, progress has been slow and Nelms has admitted delays in piecing together the funding for the project have led to frustrating hold-ups.

He said: “We’ve been working closely with Dundee City Council for a year and a half now, designing and going through the process.

“We have a private public partnership when it comes to the financing and that process takes a long, long time.

“[On] the other side of it, the land use side, we are ready to go with that. That has been ready to go for quite a long time.

“But we still have to finalise the private public partnership, for the stadium alone, because that’s the catalyst for everything we want to do there.

“There are some negative thoughts but mostly positive, and we’ll get there.”

Nelms said during the close season he was hopeful the stadium would be completed by 2020, but has admitted he has constantly had to revise his ambitions throughout the lengthy process.

He added: “My timescale was six months ago to have the project in for review by the summer. I’ll keep pushing and hopefully have it in sooner than that.”

John Nelms.