Paul Simpson says he shares Tom Piatak’s frustrations over the pace of Carlisle United’s training ground project.

Owner and chairman Piatak this week challenged Cumberland Council to “speed up the process”.

United want to build a multi-million pound new training centre in the city – with the Sheepmount understood to be the likely site.

American businessman Piatak said he wanted talks with the council to move beyond meetings to “action and execution”.

Simpson said he was not aware of specific impediments to the deal United were seeking, but endorsed Piatak’s suggestion that things should be moving quicker.

“[It’s] hugely frustrating,” said the United manager.

“One of the things I said when I first came back into the club [in 2022] is that the training facility we have now is actually worse than the training facility we had in 2006 when I left.

“With the pitch itself, Dave does a great job in keeping it at the level that it is but we have one pitch and that's it, and we had more than that last time – so we are desperately trying to get [this new facility].

News and Star: Paul SimpsonPaul Simpson (Image: Richard Parkes)

“I've been involved in meetings, the owners have been involved in meetings, Nigel [Clibbens, chief executive] has been involved in meetings and yes, we're all frustrated with the pace it's going at, but unfortunately there's not a lot more we can do about it.

“We can only just keep asking, keep pushing, keep trying.”

Cumberland Council have not yet responded to the News & Star’s invitation to comment on Piatak’s remarks, which he made in an interview with us earlier this week.

Simpson said the scale of the investment and size of the project being tabled by the club’s owners could be major for the area – and should be backed as much as possible.

“I think what the Piatak family are proposing is an unbelievable thing for our city,” he added.

“Really, we should be embracing it and absolutely dragging everything out of them, because they want to invest in our area and invest in our football club – and unfortunately we're not we're not getting forward and very quickly with anything.”

Asked if he was aware of any specific problem in the process, Simpson said: “I'm honestly not aware of [it]. I'm just aware that it's taking a long time.

“We've been talking about it probably since November and we're coming to the end of April and we don't seem to be any closer or any further forward to knowing when, or definitely where, it could happen.”