Wycombe Wanderers owner Rob Couhig has publicly spoken out on the potential plans to move the club’s training ground facility.

Last week, we reported and showed the early developments for the project which could be constructed in Little Marlow.

This comes just months after their training base in Marlow was renovated.

Some of the plans for Wycombes new training ground

Some of the plans for Wycombe's new training ground

In documents shared with the Bucks Free Press, it states the Chairboys intend to submit a hybrid planning application with Bede Group Sports & Leisure, for the development of a sports hub and Country Park on Westhorpe Farm Lane off Marlow Road.

The plans say how Wanderers will own a community football facility with a ‘state-of-the-art’ sports hall and five new pitches.

READ MORE: Wycombe Wanderers plan to build new training facility in Little Marlow

There are also unconfirmed rumours that if the plan gets the go-ahead, the base could be used as a home ground for one of the Marlow-based football teams.

Mr Couhig exclusively told the BFP: “I think [the training ground], gets into our philosophy that we are developing a Championship infrastructure.

“If you get a chance and you go by the training grounds that we presently use, you’ll see that we have poured a tonne of money into it, to upgrade it to Championship level quality.

“In fact, we’re going to have an open day in probably early spring, so that the fans can come and see what’s being done.

“We’re doing it because it’s the player’s and coach’s office.

“They need a good environment to practise in but we were unable to buy the property.

“So, we entered into a great lease for the next 10 years if we wanted to go that long, but we wanted a place that would really make our mark.

“Some folks came to us and said ‘maybe you could do a deal that’s bigger.'

"We took some options and we’re trying to get some planning approval over the next several months to build better facilities for ourselves, more fields with some additional fields in case other teams would like to come along and occasionally practise there."

EAD MORE: How Wycombe Wanderers are becoming a force in the making

The news of the potential training ground move is one of the many positive changes that have been implemented since the Couhigs took over the club at the start of 2020.

 

Wycombe owner, Rob Couhig

Wycombe owner, Rob Couhig

 

Some of these changes include having one of the fastest Wi-Fi systems in the country installed at Adams Park, on top of a huge scoreboard, and LED advertising hoardings.

New items have been introduced to the Adams Park gift shop, the club have shown their support to the LGBT community by creating a special edition rainbow shirt, whilst also putting on firework shows either before or after certain matches.

But change also comes with criticism, and after our original story was published last week, some speculated the prospective move could coincide with the Marlow Film Studio Project, which has been heavily slammed by several residents.

The American said: “I’ve recently read the criticism of the film studio.

"Ours is night and day different and I take no position into whether that’s good or bad, but we will have no traffic impact to speak of.

“On a good day, we bring 50 people to the training ground and they don’t come during rush hour.

“Maybe 100 people on a really big day, so that won’t hurt.

"Environmentally, the footprint of the buildings will be less than five per cent of everything that we’re building.

READ MORE: Marlow Society weigh in on controversial film studio debate

“Everything will be ecologically sound, they will be no noise, and we are opening up, if it all goes through, an area that is sort of a woodlands walk for people so that we’re actually giving the neighbours something new and different for them to enjoy.

 

Westhorpe Park is where the film studios could be built

Westhorpe Park is where the film studios could be built

“And the reason why we haven’t come out with a full-blown announcement yet is that we’re trying to look through and make sure that we’re as sensitive to everybody as we possibly can.

“Until we have it worked out, I’m not going to exercise my option and we’ll go from there.”

Finally, when asked about Wycombe’s recent matches, he said: “I’ve had 10 great days over here, and watched two very exciting matches.

“With the Lincoln game, you go ‘wow, it feels like a win’.

“Then you watch the game on Saturday [against Cheltenham] and it feels like a loss, yet they have the exact same point equivalence, but I think the team will be fine.”