Renovations at Portman Road are expected to be completed before the start of the 2024/25 season, according to Ipswich Town Head of Operations Rich Carpenter.

Moving up from the Championship to the Premier League can require extensive work when it comes to stadiums, as seen recently with Luton Town, who requested that their first two games of last season were played away from home to ensure that everything was finished.

The Blues aren't expected to face such difficulties, but significant changes will need to be made in the coming weeks to ensure that Portman Road is ready to be a top-flight stadium after 22 years away.

"It's a huge project," Carpenter told BBC Radio Suffolk. "There's nine weeks to go, and I don't think there's a stand in the stadium we're not doing some work on. It's a busy time.

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"Starting with the Cobbold Stand, we're obviously having to increase the capacity for away fans, accomodating 10% for the away fans, so up to 3,000 supporters.

"We're also doing a lot of work for our home fans, of course, renovating the stadium, carrying out various refurb projects within the stadium.

"There's quite a lot of work around the TV gantry relocation. It currently sits at the back of the stand but doesn't really meet Premier League requirements in terms of the restricted views and the number of cameras that we have to have in that location. We're having to bring that to the front of the upper tier.

"We're having to modify the dugouts and the technical areas to accomodate the numbers, as well as the broadcasters we need to within that space.

"In the South West corner, there's an awful lot of redevelopment work around the control room and the tunnel area. We're having to do a lot of work within the changing areas, we're having to add interview spaces, we're also having to add press conference facilities and a TV studio.

"Moving on again, onto the South Stand, we're modifying some of the seating areas as well as carrying out some redecoration and refurbishment in areas.

"It's largely driven by broadcaster requirements. Obviously Sky [Sports] being the principal broadcaster, we have to adhere to many of their specs.

"From a broadcasting perspective, if you're a viewer - wherever you are in the world - watching the live Sky game, watching the Premier League game, the broadcaster and the Premier League want to ensure that every stadium is fit for purpose.

"That includes various camera positions. We have to have 47 camera positions around the stadium as opposed to nine or 10 that we had in the Championship, for example.

"There are additional facilities in terms of increasing the changing rooms, increasing the officials' area, the list goes on. All of that is driven by us being Premier League compliant."

Of course, these plans haven't been thrown together at the last minute. In fact, Carpenter revealed that some aspects were discussed while the club was in League One, although nothing could be signed off or begin until promotion was finally confirmed on May 4th, 2024.

"I've been at the club for two years and we've been planning some of those works since then," he explained. "It's a continuous upgrade plan that we've got, we're working to upgrade the stadium throughout and we've got plans for next season already.

"The work that we're doing now, we've been doing and planning since December time.

"We'll do it, we'll get it done in time. There's a lot of people behind the scenes working incredibly hard, so we'll be ready."