THE latest plans for Bolton Wanderers' new superstadium were unveiled today.

The 25,000 all-seater stadium at Horwich has been designed to be used 365 days a year.

The club is planning for building work to start during the first week of June and be completed before the start of the 1997-98 season.

Designed by the Lobb Partnership of London, it includes a 40,000 sq ft two-floor exhibition hall - which will be more than twice the space available at the former Silverwell Street sports centre.

Club bosses believe the new drawings have significant improvements on the earlier ones unveiled at the start of the season and gives the Wanderers a unique structure.

There is still a suspended roof, developed by Watson Steel Ltd of Bolton, which hangs from four floodlight towers via a system of steel 18 inch wide steel tubes.

But there is now a continuous roof around the ground rather than four separate stands.

This will allow people using the entertaining facilities on the top floor to be able to walk all around the ground.

The seating is in two tiers with no obstructions to a clear view of the pitch. The depth of each layer will mean that even spectators at the back will be closer to the pitch than at Burnden Park.

There is a 600-seat banqueting area overlooking the pitch where fans can dine before and after matches and which will be open to the public on non-match days.

A detailed planning application of the stadium has been submitted to Bolton Council and will go before councillors on May 9.

The planning process has been complex. Outline permission has been given for a mini application for just the stadium, car parking and training pitches and councillors will now consider the details of this.

The full application for the whole of the "sports village" scheme including leisure, retail, business and housing use is now with Environment Secretary John Gummer.

He has announced that he wants to give the go-ahead in principle, but the council was asked to give more details of traffic management. A final decision is expected any day now.

The club is hoping to be able to announce the name of the contractor who will build the stadium in the next few weeks. Once work starts on site, the club is hoping to open a visitors' centre where fans can go along to see the building progress.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.