Aberdeen hit by year’s delay to plans for stadium move

Aberdeen have been forced to delay their move to a new £38 million stadium by at least a year as they still don’t own all the land to build it on.

The club were due to move into a planned 21,000-capacity ground in time for the start of the season after next. Construction at the site on the south side of the city at Loirston Loch was due to begin last month but the plans have been put on hold for the time being.

It’s an embarrassing delay for chairman Stewart Milne who has made it clear that turning around Aberdeen’s loss-making operation depends on relocating and selling Pittodrie. On-field performances have even had supporters questioning the need for such a large stadium given that average attendances have slipped to just over 9,000. This latest news increases the pressure on Craig Brown to deliver a winning team on the park after the team finished ninth in the SPL for a third successive season.

Chief executive Duncan Fraser admits the short-term focus must now be on improving a struggling side that has failed to win silverware for 18 years. However he is confident that the delay in moving is only temporary and a result of being unrealistic with the original deadline for the project.

Fraser said: “From the outset, when we announced the original timetable, we did state it was an extremely robust and ambitious timescale and that has proved to be exactly the case. The issue of land assembly in the locality of the site was always going to be one of the major challenges and, while we remain confident of a positive outcome, the process has taken longer than we had originally hoped.

“The stadium being put back by 12 months will allow the focus next season to be in ensuring on the field success. While the delay is disappointing, such is the scale of the project it is imperative to ensure we are not giving ourselves unrealistic deadlines and we can now carry on with planning for a further two full seasons at Pittodrie.”