Bradford City will start work on the construction of their new 7,300 all-seater Kop in Dec-ember.

The Bantams submitted their planning application yesterday and hope to begin demolishing the back of the Kop before Christmas.

However City intend retaining the front half of the terrace which means the capacity of the Kop will be cut to 4,500 for the second half of the season.

The club currently have 3,500 season ticket holders on the Kop at the moment and they will all be accommodated on the truncated terrace for the rest of the season.

That means only 1,000 tickets will be available on general sale for each match. City chairman Geoffrey Richmond said: "Subject to the planning application being approved and the agreement of the Football Trust, we intend starting the work in December which is much earlier than the original plan to start in March.

"However with the December start date it means the new stand will be completed before next season kicks off."

The move follows the pledge earlier this month by Richmond that the club will make Valley Parade their permanent home.

There had been speculation that they could move in with Bradford Bulls at a re-built Odsal but the vast majority of City fans were against such a move.

The £2.5 million structure has been chosen ahead of a larger 10,500 capacity stand with the club remaining committed to two further phases of development to link the Kop with the main and Midland Road stands.

That will give the Kop end of the ground an eventual capacity of 10,500.

The building work is scheduled to take 32 weeks and the Kop will be erected slightly behind the current structure so as to make it possible to build a bigger stand at the Bradford end if the need arises.

The Kop terrace has to be converted to an all-seater stand by the start of next season to comply with the Taylor report which followed the Hillsborough disaster.

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