New Bristol City stadium will cost £92million

The new Bristol City stadium at Ashton Vale will cost the club about £92 million in total, chairman Steve Lansdown has told a meeting of supporters.

Addressing more than 100 shareholders and fans last night, Mr Lansdown said when fees for solicitors, architects, structural engineers and the cost of acquiring the land was taken into account, the cost of the project will increase by about a third over the previously-published figure of £65 million.

The public meeting at the Dolman Stand exhibition hall at the club's existing Ashton Gate ground was a chance for Mr Lansdown to update fans on the club's annual accounts and aspirations for the future.

He also took questions from the audience alongside chief executive Colin Sexstone and manager Gary Johnson.

Mr Lansdown said the £65 million figure referred to the cost of constructing the building but not all the extras needed to make way for it.

The chairman said the new stadium will help the club to fulfil its ambitions to be a Premier League side and a club synonymous with football, but said the club's success would also have an impact on Bristol both in terms of the World Cup and long-term.

He said: "If you have got sport right in a city, it will prosper.

"We are looking to make this into a big football club and we have got to work together to make it happen.

"We have to make Bristol City Football Club a Premiership side."

Mr Lansdown told the audience that 5,000 people had logged onto the internet to view the Bristol City Council planning meeting earlier this month, when councillors decided they were minded to approve the stadium. The chairman said that in working with the council on the application, the authority needs to be "more helpful".

Mr Lansdown said: "There is no point saying we can't do this, and we can't do that because of the slow worms, they have got to say what we can do; as President Obama said, they need to get rid of the word can't and use the word can."

The audience was told the planning application for the supermarket on the Ashton Gate site is likely to be submitted to the authority by the end of January.

He told the meeting there are many pluses in the Sainsbury's bid to build a new supermarket on the current home of Bristol City.

He said: "The big plus is that with Sainsbury's there will not be two supermarkets, it is a transfer and the other will go to houses, not retail.

"There are a lot of pluses coming from North Street traders and the anti-Tesco campaign Berate has closed up, although it could be restored.

"It is a big site and there will be people against it.

"We want to push the enabling works and we will need our fan base, who were incredibly helpful to us in the application at Ashton Vale."

Mr Sexstone said the club will be contacting people on their database, asking for all the support they can give during the next planning phase.

And referring to architect George Ferguson's vision of turning Ashton Gate into the city's first carbon neutral neighbourhood, Mr Sexstone said: "George Ferguson is a dreadful pain in our backsides, purely because he is not involved.

"These are the people we have to fight. They are interested in their own egos and not the good of the area or our city."

After the meeting, in response to Mr Sexstone's comments, Mr Ferguson said: "Colin Sexstone should grow up. It is very silly of him.

"I am a sponsor and supporter of the football club and I have backed the stadium plan, but I oppose the idea of the existing Ashton Gate stadium being used for an unsuitable use.

"I am a fan of Bristol City, but I am also a fan of Bristol and want to do what is best for Bristol."