Shrewsbury's new training ground ready in a minimum eight weeks

Poor weather conditions over the summer had slowed down work on the Sundorne Castle-based site but recent progress has been made.

Maxwell Amenity Ltd, who are in charge of the development, revealed that the seeding process is due to be completed by the end of this weekend.

The process was originally outlined last December, while the club announced in April that the development required a near-£200,000 initial investment.

Dave Saltman, managing director of Maxwell Amenity, told ShrewsWeb: "On Monday we started spreading it. We put down 240 tonnes of sand while we had machinery available. We're hoping to get the rest of the sand down by this morning (Friday).

"Then we will have other lads coming in. We are going to cultivate and mix all of the root zone we put down last week and the sand, into the top three or four inches of the silty clay soil.

"Hopefully what we're going to do is produce a surface of around six inches of decent free draining material. So, by the end of this weekend if the weather continues to stay nice, and it's supposed to be getting warmer and dryer, we will have it cultivated, graded, consolidated and seeded.

'We are in the lap of the gods'

The club estimate that, weather permitting, training at the new centre will be available to the Salop first team in two months.

Town also confirmed that rabbit fences had been erected around three sides of the development, as the large rabbit population had caused 'significant damage' to the area's old field.

Micky Mellon's first team currently train on fields next to their Greenhous Meadow stadium.