FRESH plans for Southend United’s stadium at Fossetts Farm will go in today and the club should start moving to its new home in December, 2018.

Blues chairman, Ron Martin, told last night’s annual meeting the revised proposal will be submitted to the council today.

He said Sainsbury’s – a development partner in the original plans – was no longer involved. A future development at Roots Hall will be “entirely residential”, he said.

Mr Martin told last night’s meeting at Southend Civic Centre: "The application goes in tomorrow and there has been a lot of hard work by a lot of people.

“The plans are significantly different. We do not have Sainsbury. All supermarkets stopped building megastores probably two and a half years ago."

Speaking about the future of Roots Hall, he said: "It’s all residential at Roots Hall. There is no supermarket and it’s a shame because that takes a lot of money out of the equation.

“Fossetts is largely the same although we’ve extended the car parking facilities."

"There’s a 16-week period where third parties can make representations on the application. Assuming the local authorities come to a decision in the autumn we will be ready to start construction immediately afterwards. The first phase will get us into the stadium in December next year."

Weston Homes last year bought the old Prospects site neighbouring the Roots Hall stadium.

Click here for updates from last night's meeing.