Saturday's match against Sunderland was the Hatters first home game of 2018-19, and the first of many battles on the pitch at Kenilworth Road this season. But, while the campaign for the Sky Bet League One title is only just beginning, the fight to find a new home for Luton Town Football Club has been going on since the 1950s.
Furthermore, it’s now been over two years since the planning applications for a new stadium at Power Court and the enabling development, consisting of aspirational retail, leisure, offices and hotels at Newlands Park were validated by Luton Borough Council.
The developments would:
- Create many thousands of new jobs and opportunities within Luton
- Revitalise the town centre
- Build a 21st century football stadium
- Open up land for re-development in the Bury Park area
- Create an impressive new gateway to Luton we'd be proud of
#saveourtown are an independent campaign backed by Lutonians and people who care about Luton, to support plans to regenerate the town with the developments at Power Court and Newlands Park.
Their aim is to ensure that the record 11,000+ voices who sent emails and letters to Luton Borough Council, and all the Luton communities who support the plans, are heard and listened to.
As such, the representatives from the #saveourtown campaign who joined us at Kenilworth Road this afternoon, displayed banners reminding supporters that their work continues, and is far from over.
Nigel Green, Chair for #saveourtown spoke to lutontown.co.uk:
“#saveourtown is an independent community campaign trying to bring together all of the support for the Power Court and Newlands Park applications. We're going out into the communities and talking to people to make sure they're aware of all the benefits of these two wonderful developments.
“Our message is that these developments are about more than just football. The benefits to the community in terms of new retail and leisure facilities, a music venue and places to go in the evening would spread far and wide across the town, and of course a new home for the football club would be very welcome too.
“For Lutonians, the developments would be absolutely huge. When we've been out and about talking to people about the proposals, they've been very enthusiastic and they fully understand that it's necessary for the town to move forward.
“If people want to get involved, we're doing some fundraising via our crowdfunding page which can be found on our website www.saveourtownluton.co.uk.”
A decision from Luton Borough Council in anticipated to be announced before the end of this year.