THE first bricks for Saints' new stadium will be laid as early as next spring, club bosses have pledged.

The announcement that work on the 32,000-seater stadium at Northam can now begin in earnest came yesterday as club shareholders gave their unanimous seal of approval for the move to the new ground.

On what was described as an "historic day for the club", around 150 shareholders who attended a specially-convened extraordinary general meeting of Saints' parent company Southampton Leisure Holdings PLC formally backed the plan to sell the existing Dell for development and move to the Britannia Road site.

They also gave approval for a ten-year £17 million funding package to finance the scheme.

After the meeting Mr Lowe said: "I am delighted that the shareholders have given their formal approval to the plans. It is a historic day for the club."

He said it was anticipated that the new stadium would be ready for the beginning of the 2001-2002 season.

"We have completed the planning stage. Now we have to move to the construction stage.

"The indications are that it shouldn't be too painful, the technical groundwork has already been completed, the site has been cleared and some of the utility links are already in place.

"Hopefully by the first quarter of next year people will see something above ground."

During the meeting chief executive Andrew Cowen allayed fears over transport problems on match days near the ground by pledging there would be free parking on some city streets, free park-and-ride sites, and free bus travel within the city for supporters travelling to home matches.

He said if the team was still in the Premiership crowd projections were that the stadium would be packed to its 32,000 capacity for the most attractive six games of the season.

For the next six most attractive games it was hoped 27,000 people would attend, and even for the less attractive matches that 23,000 fans would show up.

He said that with more tickets available in general it was hoped more concession tickets would be up for grabs. He stopped short of setting ticket prices but said it would not be in the interests of the club to price out existing season ticket holders and club members.

It also emerged that just under half of 7.6 million shares issued to kickstart the scheme had been taken up by existing shareholders. The remaining shares are to be underwritten by five investors, including Mr Lowe.

Mr Cowen said: "The message that should go out to fans is that ever since the St Mary's stadium plan was put in place we have had a very clear timetable and we have stuck to it. We are still on schedule.

"But to use an analogy, this is only half-time - we still have the construction project to come.

"There have been soil surveys and archaeological assessments but until we get on site and begin to lay the foundations we won't know exactly what is there."

Following the meeting team manager Dave Jones said: "It is an unbelievable achievement. I am just glad everything has got the go-ahead. But I always felt it would be built. I am in close contact with the chairman and the board and they were always positive. I think once the first brick has been laid everyone will begin to believe it."

"I look forward to the day we can march out in the new stadium," he added.

Converted for the new archive on 25 January 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.