REVEALED: Fratton Park upgrade crashes through £15m barrier in new chapter of Portsmouth redevelopment

Fratton Park’s regeneration is set to go charging through the £15m mark.

Chief executive Andy Cullen has detailed the next stage of the facelift for Pompey’s home, as its summer overhaul continues.

Work on the South Stand’s new TV gantry is now nearing completion, with that stage of the project set to be finished in the next couple of weeks. 

A huge crane is due to be removed from pitch, allowing crucial work on the playing surface to begin ahead of the start of the Championship season on August 10.

The new gantry was part of the original £12m project bankrolled by the Eisners, off the back of the Milton End overhaul taking Fratton Park’s capacity to 21,000.

Now it’s confirmed work on a new mezzanine in the North Stand and Victory Lounge rerfurbishment will send the figure skyrocketing.

Additionally, another new TV gantry is going into the Fratton End with the matchday fanzone being upgraded and further toilets installed into the Milton End.

Cullen said: ‘It’s additional work now, but we’re now pushing beyond a £15m investment in Fratton Park.

‘A lot of this work is now extra. The gantry was a part of the original programme, but the mezzanine, Victory Lounge and Fratton End TV gantry - all of those are new projects.’

Cullen’s delight at the Fratton progress is deepened by the factors he faced when arriving as Pompey’s chief executive in 2021.

He reiterated the issues which were going to see ground's capacity reduced to a level which wasn’t sustainable for the club or supporters.

Cullen added: ‘We’ve now got the infrastructure to go into the Championship next season with a maximum capacity of 21,000 in place.

‘That wouldn’t have been the case two or three years ago. I’ve always said that three years ago we were looking at a capacity fast heading towards 10,000.

‘When I came in it was going to go below 15,000, but we managed to maintain it at 16,000 because work had started.

‘If the work hadn’t started it was going to get lower and lower each season, as more and more safety concerns came in as a result of a lack of investment in the stadium over so many years.’