QUEEN OF THE SOUTH ARE AIMING TO FINALISE PLANS FOR A MAJOR REDEVELOPMENT OF PALMERSTON PARK ...reports the Dumfries and Galloway Standard
The club is set to meet with Dumfries and Galloway Housing Partmership (DGHP) over the mult-million pound project.
The aim is to demolish and rebuild the Main Stand with the creation of offices to provide the social landlord with a new headquarters.
The club has ditched its original plans for a complete £23 million redevelopment of palmerston.
In an interview with the Stadard,director Mark Robertson said: "We know now that it is an unrealistic aim but we are still looking at the main stand and still in dialogue wqith DGHP.
"We are looking at a full redvelopment of the entire stand - fully demolished and rebuilt - and that is well within our grasp.
"We want to bulild new changing rooms,hospitality services,gym facilty and several differnt things ".
DGHP made an unsucceessful Euro bid for £23 million earlier in the year to secure the stadium redevelopment.
The deal would have resulted in the agency acquiring the former Tesco site and waste ground adjacent to Palmerston for housing.
Mr Robertson added: they are keen to do something on the site and we intend on meeting them probably in early February"
The Palmerston directors are hoping to secure a deal to pave the way for a more stable 2012 after a financial crisis last season which almost put the club out of business.
With the taxman at the door on top of other difficulties,board members had to stump up their own cash to keep it operating.
He said "Last season the club was in a position that no individual or business would like to be in and it could not have continueds for another full season operating like that.
"Quite simply,Queen of the South would have folded. Drastic action had to be put in place or else there would have been no club.
"We had to put money in ourselves and we were very fortunate that my fellow directors were prepared to put their hands in their pocket to reduce the deficit."
The club's debts sat at around £250,000 in March,including £100,000 owed to the taxman, and the situation at Palmerston looked bleak.
Mr Roberston added: "You would hope never to get into a situation like that but the club owed a lot of money to the taxman.
A bit of land was sold to Billy Hewitson whch,along with contributions from other directors,paid the bill."
The club was forced to make "severe cutbacks" following a long term of overspending"
Queens are now on a firmer financial footing but have slipped to bottom of the first division this season.
Mr Roberstson said "For a long period period the club were paying premier league wages and this was confirmed when Gus MacPherson, a former SPL manager came in.
"We had to slash the playing budget by 50 per cent this year because the model was not sustainable.
"We were bringing ten pounds in and spending 11.
"At least now, after severe cutbacks,we bringing in ten and spending ten
"The financies are looking much better but not solved. We still have cost cutting to do,which I know some people will find distasteful but we have to do it.
"Ideally as a club we would like to be bringing in ten pounds,only spending nine and a half pounds and saving the rest for a rainy day.
"If you don't have a stable base then you have nothing to build on. You can see that it has affected our squad size and it's capability to perform in the league but we knew it was a gamble and we had to take.
"If we didn't take this gamble then we wouldn't have a club"
Meanwhile Queens Mad understands that so far Queen's manager has been unsuccessful in signing any new players in the transfer window. Gus quoted " The players are just not there within our budget"