Scunthorpe United Football Club (SUFC) has received planning permission from North Lincolnshire Council for a new £18m stadium.

The 12,000-seater stadium will be developed as part of the mixed-use Lincolnshire Lakes project – which is spearheaded by Lucent Group and will include 3,500 new houses, a commercial park, a school and a transport hub.

The designs and masterplan for the stadium have been created by the Frank Whittle Partnership and come as SUFC chair Peter Swann is keen to provide the club with a new home and move the club from its current 9,000-capacity Glanford Park.

SUFC hopes to move into its new home in July 2016, and Swann anticipates a “busy and exciting 14 months” as the club prepares for the “dawn of a new era” – adding that securing agreements to lease the commercial space at the stadium will be key to the project’s success.

“The stadium is a dream for me and hopefully it's something the fans will buy into,” he said.

“We're going to be in a place where revenue streams are going to be higher.

“We can't tell the fans about everybody that's going to be in the stadium because we're working on contracts with them but we're quite advanced with deals to fill out the space.

“I'm pretty confident that when we open all the space will be leased. That will help finish off the finance of it.

“We can bring all our footballing teams - youth, reserve, first team - and also the community set-up together in one place and we're very much looking forward to that.”