Wanderers are ready to boast the most expensive new stadium ever built in the United Kingdom.

The steelwork, supplied locally by Watsons, is growing daily at the Horwich site and it appears that no expense is being spared in pursuit of quality and spectator comfort at the 25,000 all-seater showpiece.

The final cost of the ambitious project, due for completion next August, will be well over £30 million - an impressive focal point of the £150 million Middlebrook sports village development which will eventually provide 3,500 new jobs.

Plans for a new rail halt are now well advanced while supporters will be offered subsidised bus travel.

The stadium itself is being built to comply with the rigid requirements of the Taylor Report into ground safety plus the recommendations of football's world and European governing bodies, FIFA and UEFA.

Safety has been paramount throughout the planning stages but spectators will also be offered levels of comfort eclipsing those at any ground in the country.

Seats will be positioned in rows of 800 mm concrete steppings offering more legroom than the 720 mm recommended in the Taylor Report and the highly-acclaimed McAlpine Stadium at Huddersfield, which provides 760 mm.

Wanderers director Graham Ball told the club's shareholders yesterday that the hi-tec design did not allow for any increase on the 25,000 capacity at a future date.

"The stadium cannot be modified," he explained. "There is no way we could have afforded to build for a 40,000 capacity but that would not have fit in anyway with our obligations to the local authority and the extensive community elements of the project.

"We aren't just building a stadium for football 30 times a year. But we will be delighted if we fill it.

"As things stand now, this will be the most expensive stadium ever built in the UK and, for its size, it will be the best in Europe."

Wanderers are delighted with the progress of the project and believe they will reap the benefit of ploughing on with the pitch well in advance of any building work.

The towering steelwork already creates an impressive sight on the Horwich skyline but it will be more imposing still when the floodlights make the structure twice as high.

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