BURNLEY Football Club today unveiled plans for a massive redevelopment of the Turf Moor fooball and Cricket grounds in a project which could cost some £10 million.

The Clarets are planning to buy Burnley Cricket Club's current home and finance a proposed new cricket ground at the council-owned Fulledge Recreation ground.

If the council approves the sale of Fulledge and gives planning permission for a new "state-of-the-art" venue for Burnley CC, the Clarets would press ahead with commercial development of the current cricket field site and the redevelopment of part of their own ground to push the capacity up from 22,500 to around 30,000.

That would involve upgrading the Lookers Cricket Field Stand and potentially the Bob Lord Stand as well to completely modernise the stadium.

The football club wouldn't speculate on the total cost of the proposed three-year project but it's thought that buying the Turf Moor cricket ground, re-housing Burnley CC at Fulledge with a lump sum to safeguard their future, developing new commercial opportunities and upgrading the football ground could cost in the order of £10 million.

The Clarets' ground and development director Clive Holt said: "The project will enable us to support the highest level of football at Turf Moor possible.

"These are ambitious plans which have a long way to go before they are finalised but if an enlightened view is taken by all concerned, including our local council, it will be of benefit to both clubs and the town and residents alike. "We have had that agreement (to sell the ground) in principle and now the cricket club have to go to their members who will hopefully agree that it's a good opportunity.

"We can provide something for them that will be a state of the art facility and a bit of cash which would safeguard their future."

In return, Burnley FC will look to generate considerable income from the planned cricket field development which could house sports facilities, hotels, food outlets and possibly retail premises.

"It gives us great commercial opportunities if we have that piece of land," said Holt.

"It would give us greater income and that's why it's worth more to us than any other developer.

"We want to make the club stronger by bringing in more match-day revenue and more commercial revenue at other times of the week."

With handouts from the likes of the Football Trust and the Football Foundation not as freely available as in the past, the Clarets would probably have to fund the bulk project themselves.

However, the project could include partnerships with property developers keen on a stake in the venture.

Holt added: "It's a multi-million development, the same as the others (the north and east stands at Turf Moor) were which we managed to fund and make progress with.

"That took five years from the when we started to think about it to when it was finally finished and it's the same sort of thing with this. It won't be done in five minutes."

The project would be a drain on Burnley's resources, although the board will continue to do everything to support manager Stan Ternent in his efforts to produce the goods on the pitch.

"If the effect is a weaker team then it's a waste of time doing it," said Holt, who underlined the desire to press for Premiership status by catering for bigger gates -- starting with the current away end.

"That stand has a capacity of just over 4,000 and if we want to get to the promised land -- and we have all got an ambition to try our damndest to get there -- we need a certain capacity to take advantage of the bigger games, in the order of 30,000."

And while that is stage one, some form of improvements to the Bob Lord Stand may also be in the pipeline.

"If we want to get to 30,000 it would need to be redeveloped to some degree," Holt added.