WORK is expected to be completed on the new speedway and greyhound racing stadium at Blunsdon by the middle of this year.

It began in earnest in September last year, when cranes appeared on the site just off the A419.

Now, the land has been dug up and the groundworks are all underway, with the hope of a summer completion.

As part of the redevelopment, the existing stands and terraces will be demolished, and the new building placed on the opposite side of the track.

The work will also see both the greyhound and speedway circuits reduced in size.

Outline planning permission was first granted a decade ago for the revamp.

But full approval was not granted to Gaming International until January 2020, just weeks before the pandemic took hold on the country.

During those years a number of different ideas were put forward as part of the plan, including new houses and a care home, which were approved. While scores of new houses have been built around the stadium in the last 10 years, ideas to build a new fire station and a market on the site did not come to fruition.

After full planning permission was granted the company’s director and the redevelopment project manager George Edwards said he hoped the work could have been finished by the end of the year.

It was delayed by the pandemic but there was another setback when the construction plan, needed as a condition of planning consent, was refused last June.

A spokesperson for Stadia UK said: “All the groundworks are well underway, and if everything goes well, the project should be completed by the middle of the year. It it still going to take some time to complete, and the works will be undertaken in stages.

“We need to dig up the land - as you can see at the site at the moment - and lay down the necessary services before we can start building.”

They added after previous delays that everything was now going “according to the timeline”, ready for a summer 2022 completion.

It was delayed by the pandemic but there was another setback when the construction plan, needed as a condition of planning consent, was refused last June.