ST HELENS Town have good reasons to welcome in the New Year - with a return to the borough on the horizon after almost six years on the road.

The club, who have played outside town since Knowsley Road was demolished 2010, said they have been given assurances by St Helens Council that the new ground at Ruskin Drive will be ready for May 2016.

Work is due to begin this month and should be finished well before the start of the 2016/17 season.

The plans reveal that it will be a fully enclosed ground, with direct access from the changing rooms, turnstiles, refreshment facilities and a covered stand with sufficient seating to comply with the FA’s ground grading requirements to enable Town to play at NW Counties Premier Division level.

The artificial playing surface will ensure that fixtures will go ahead as they fall due, thereby avoiding financial losses which necessarily follow when the weather intervenes.

Town will not own the ground, which will be a community facility, but have been assured of priority to guarantee it will be available for all their home fixtures.

Town have been playing out of St Helens in exile, first at Ashton Town and more recently at Ashton Athletic.

The club’s gates have suffered over this time as spectators without their own transport find it difficult to get to Brocstedes Park.

The club believe the new facility back in the borough will be much more convenient, particularly to the casual spectator.

Given reasonable success, it should be the shot in the arm the club needs as it reaches 70 years since its reformation after the end of the World War II.