Tottenham's new White Hart Lane stadium enters crucial building phase

Tottenham also confirmed on Friday that in the new stadium they will guarantee 10,000 tickets for residents of the local boroughs of Haringey and Enfield

Work continues on Tottenham Hotspur's new stadium at White Hart Lane (Getty Images)

Work on the new White Hart Lane has entered a crucial phase with the start of lifting the roof on to Tottenham Hotspur’s new stadium.

The £20m roof – made up of a cable net structure, 287 glass sections and 810 cladded cassettes – will now gradually be lifted on top of the stadium’s compression ring. The process is meant to take three weeks, depending on weather conditions, in a crucial month for the stadium build. Tottenham hope their new 61,500-seater home will be ready in seven months’ time for the start of the 2018-19 season.

Work on lifting on the roof was ready to begin this week – in keeping with the construction schedule – once the stadium’s compression ring was completed. That ring, sitting at the back of the stadium’s four stands, will now be connected to a lower and an upper tension ring, at the centre of the roof, by 45 radial cables. Once the 10km, 600 tonne roof cable structure is in place and tightened, then the lifting of the rest of the roof can begin.

There will be 287 glass roof sections and 810 cladded roof ‘cassettes’, making up the body of the roof, which will be lifted onto the cable structure. The roof will also support the stadium’s floodlighting, with six LED sports lights on each of the 54 flying columns, which link the stands to the upper tension rings.

Tottenham also confirmed on Friday that in the new stadium they will guarantee 10,000 tickets for residents of the local boroughs of Haringey and Enfield: 2,500 season tickets and 2,500 matchday tickets for residents of each.