THIS week's Grimsby Town Fans' Forum, organised by the Mariners Trust, dealt with a variety of hot topics – here are some of the questions - and the answers from director John Fenty and bosses Paul Hurst and Rob Scott.Q Is there anyway Blundell Park could be developed if the Peaks Parkway project is not successful – or would the club look at other sites such as Freeman Street or the Docks?A (John Fenty): First and foremost, to relocate, we need an enabling subsidy and if you think about Freeman Street or Grimsby Docks, we simply cannot see where that sort of support is going to come from. The cocktail of land is in different ownership and to amalgamate the 20-30 acres needed to do a decent job, you're looking at having to negotiate with a raft of owners and to make that happen would take an eternity.
In terms of the Docks, I think we really need to put that one to bed. We need 20 to 30 acres, something of that order. The waterways alone represent 25 acres and there is only strips of land around the docks. So therefore it would need the dock to be filled or part-filled, meaning the substructure would cost as much as the surface structure to build. Where would the money to do that come from?
The people that continue to bang on about it are just not being realistic. Unless there's a massive dowry or a sugar daddy like Abramovich comes on board, there's just no way of making it work.
I really think we need to ditch any ideas of going on the docks once and for all.
Turning to Blundell Park, we are challenged. We face the North Sea, although effectively it is the Humber. It is not central and not well located. If we started upgrading stands now, the theory is that we wouldn't see the uplift in gates that we would require to justify the expenditure.
If you're upgrading the ground after a given time, the theory is that you wouldn't support the business case.
People will not come to modern football stadiums unless they can park there or at least get to them very easily. That leaves us with the dilemma of relocation, if you would like to call it a dilemma.
We were extremely disappointed that the planning permission for Great Coates took so long to get – it wasn't through lack of effort on our part, I can assure you of that.
Things became too difficult to contemplate relocating to Great Coates and we had to ditch that one.
It currently remains in the local plan and we're working with the Council to see whether it should come out of the local plan and have the new site that we're looking at declared as the potential way forward.
The Council have resolved to give Simons Development Limited an exclusivity agreement for one year to explore the opportunity to unlock a retailer.
At the end of the day, they're fairly optimistic that they can do that. The objective of that is to raise sufficient funds that would ultimately belong to the council and it is hoped that dowry would be reinvested into the stadium for it to become a community stadium operated by the football club.
It's all in its infancy and whilst it has been a couple of years of work, looking at a variety of sites, we prefer the site now in question off Peaks Parkway.
It is a fabulous location – it's got everything going for it and if we can pull this off I feel it will be vastly better than Great Coates for fans.
It's by no means a done deal and there's lots of work to be done yet. If you asked me whether we could pull this off – I'd say yes, of course we can. We are optimistic and we wouldn't be investing so much time and effort into this if we didn't think this was a real opportunity to make this happen.
The council recognise what this club does for the community and going forward what it can continue to do for this community.Q Financially, are we able to sign the loan players?A (John Fenty): The simple answer to that question is that if it's affordable, we will do it. Clearly we are funding contributions on their wages, either fully or in part. We are already doing it so I can't see why that can't continue.Q You've never had a goalkeeper named on the bench, is there a contingency plan for this?A (Paul Hurst): We have got a contingency plan that has cropped up. Provided he is involved and on the pitch, Shaun Pearson would go in goal if ever required. Shaun would be more than willing to go in there and give his all if needed. You can see what it means to him to play for this club and that would be another thing that he would put himself forward for.
Touch wood, not having a keeper on the bench has never come back to bite us yet. If it did in one particular game then so be it, but the amount of times you see keepers having to come on is few and far between, so we'd rather stick with it.For more questions and answers, see today's Telegraph
