Sainsbury's 106 Signed

After an agonising wait Rovers have this afternoon announced that the Sainsbury's 106 has been signed by all parties and has been sent to Bristol City Council to be sealed. Chairman Nick Higgs says he expects this to be done within 24 hours and then all that remains is a 3 month judicial review before the club are free to begin work on the UWE Stadium. All things being well the first work will take place at the end of September.

The signing of the 106 has been the torment for Rovers for a number of weeks as there seemed to be little progress as it was passed around each party. The 106 was signed off for the UWE Stadium itself quite some time ago and the same correspondence had to be signed for Sainsbury's to build on the Memorial Stadium site after we move into our new home. Higgs said the signing would be 'imminent' over a fortnight ago and the lack of news has been torturous for supporters, with some Bristol City fans deciding to start spreading online rumours about potential problems with the plans. Fortunately they've proven to be unsubstantiated and show our red friends to be, if we didn't already know, pretty sad. Still, we should take it as a compliment that they are so concerned about the potential Rovers evolution that a new stadium could provide us. Perhaps now they'll go back to looking forward to their own stadium plans... oh, wait a minute! The gap is closing!

It seems unlikely anything will be raised during the judicial review and that really did make this the last real worry in the planning process. All that remains is to sit patiently and wait for the 90 day period to elapse before we can watch the club start building work on our new home.

Ladies and gentleman, the UWE Stadium: