Braintree Town are set for a meeting that chairman Lee Harding feels could be “pivotal to the future of the club”.

Several of the Iron’s directors are due to meet senior members of Braintree District Council on Wednesday to be presented with a feasibility study looking at the proposals for a new football stadium.

Plans have been in place for a number of years for the club’s relocation to a new home on land off Panfield Lane, with their present Cressing Road base being sold off as part of a major development of housing.

The scheme has been included in the council’s Local Plan for new homes.

Braintree Town are also keen to relocate as they know their current stadium would make it tough for them to move into the Football League if they earn promotion from the Vanarama National League.

However, Harding said, as the club own their current stadium, they want to ensure any proposed relocation won’t land them with a debt that will hamper any forward progress in the future.

He said: “We’ve been invited to a meeting on Wednesday where this feasibility study will be presented to us.

“We will then look at what the council’s plans are but we are certain in our own minds of where we will go, which is the Panfield Lane site.

“However, we are then into the nitty gritty of how it is afforded.

“We as a club have always kept our feet on the floor and have a proven track record of finding the resources to be competitive.

“The new stadium is important to us.

“Not because we have tens of thousands of people queuing up to come in but if we are thinking of competing for a place in the Football League, we need those facilities.

“We need the infrastructure and the ways of generating income so we can compete and have the resources to bring in better players.

“The council know what needs to be done and I think Wednesday’s meeting is pivotal to the future of the club.

“What they show us has to be deliverable and affordable as well.

“We own Cressing Road and we want the new stadium to be affordable where there is no rent and no mortgage as we have now.

“We have to make sure it works for us.

“If it doesn’t then we’re not going anywhere and we’ll stay where we are.

“There is scope for development and we are prepared to play our part, but we have to make sure that we come out of it smelling of roses.

“When we move, we have to get it right because we are selling the family silver and the new silver needs to be just as shiny or ideally even better.”