Your questions answered

Tottenham Hotspur (Spurs) Football Club is located in North London. The club is also known as Spurs. Tottenham's home ground is White Hart Lane. The club motto is Audere est Facere (To dare is to do).

Your questions answered on the plans to develop a state-of-the-art training centre at Abridge.

Q. What are Tottenham's proposals?
Tottenham is proposing to develop a new Youth Academy, new First Team training facilities and the expansion of its successful football in the community programme. The Academy and first team facilities are planned to be located at Epping Lane, while the Football in the Community scheme will be based at Spurs Lodge.

Q. Why does Tottenham need to develop its training facilities and academy?
Tottenham's current training facilities at Spurs Lodge are not of the quality required for the club to be able to compete with the best clubs in Europe. It has become recognised in recent years that to compete at the very highest level requires providing much improved training facilities and development infrastructure that stands comparison with the best clubs in Europe.

Q. Why has THFC selected this site which is in the green belt. Surely a brownfield or urban site would be a more appropriate choice?
Before selecting Abridge Tottenham considered expansion of its existing training facilities at Spurs Lodge and looked at a number of different options. However none of the other options proved to be viable due to a combination of site planning and land ownership reasons. Tottenham also considered eleven other sites none of which proved to be suitable.

The site on Epping Lane is an ideal choice for the academy and training facilities because:
- it is large enough to accommodate all the facilities needed;
- it is close enough to White Hart Lane to meet the Club's operational needs and it satisfies the location requirements of the FA rules for licensed academies;
- It is readily available and allows for the implementation of an outstanding design solution.

The environmental quality of the site is one of its main advantages from the Club's point of view. It is therefore in the Club's interest to minimise any adverse impact on the local environment.

Q. What are the plans for THFC existing training ground at Spurs Lodge?
If the planning application for Epping Lane is successful, Spurs Lodge will be established as the Spurs in the Community headquarters for the next phase in the Club's successful Football in the Community programme. The Lodge's training facilities will be available for use by local schools and athletes.

Q. How large will the new training centre be?
The site covers 56 acres. However, only 6% of the site will be built on the remainder of the site will be open space and used for training activities that are appropriate for the green belt.

Q. Will the new training centre create an increase in traffic along Epping Lane?
Our traffic impact assessment for the site shows that the Centre have a very minimal impact on traffic growth overall. Our assessment shows that it will have:
· a zero increase on traffic growth during the weekday am peak
· a 28 vehicle increase in the weekday pm peak - less than one additional car every two minutes
· and an average increase of 42 vehicle movements during the weekend peaks - less than one additional car every minute.

To further minimise any additional traffic the Club has also developed a Green Travel Plan. The plan will see the establishment of a minibus scheme to transport Youth Academy players between the site and their homes. All parents of academy players will be required to agree that their children will use the mini buses.

Q. Will the new training centre be open to fans?
The training centre and youth academy will not be open to the general public. The club will operate strict security at the sight and will actively discourage fans and members of the public visiting it.

Q. Are there any plans to move Spurs football stadium to the area?
The Club has no plans what so ever to move its football stadium to Abridge. The Club is currently looking at a number of options on how it can improve White Hart Lane stadium.