SWINDON Town manager Richie Wellens revealed his squad has only trained at its designated Beversbrook Sports Facility 10 times over the past two-and-a-half months.

A combination of the poor winter weather and an inadequate amount of pitch-recovery time has forced Wellens and his League Two-leading squad to hop between a plethora of south-England training bases when preparing for games.

Reading, Hungerford and Melksham have all been tapped up as temporary homes for Wellens’ sessions while former England men’s national team base Bisham Abbey was visited recently after a spate of harsh weather.

And with a decision still yet to be reached on proposals to build a new facility in Highworth, the Swindon manager wants to see some progress made sooner rather than later regardless of how successful matters on the field become.

Wellens said: “Irrespective of whether we’re in League One or League Two next year, this is a big enough club that when you look at the facilities and the stadium, we should have a quality training ground and a pitch that is of a quality that allows us to train for as long as we need every day.

“Wednesday was the 10th time that we’ve trained at our training ground on our designated training pitch since the middle of November.

“So in around two-and-a-half months, we’ve trained at our training ground 10 times.”

Despite a squad filled with talented match-winners, some may argue it is a considerable surprise that Town have been able to ascend to the top of the table given their inability to find a settled training facility.

Besides that, Wellens’ biggest frustration is that he is not able to properly dedicate his time to planning high-quality sessions for his players.

The Town manager also said training often only lasts an hour rather than his preferred 90 minutes.

Wellens said: “We’ve gone to Bisham Abbey which is an hour and a half away, we’ve trained at Hungerford, Reading’s training ground, Melksham – both are 45 minutes away.

“We can’t be going around everywhere training at a different venue every day.

“The worry for me and the staff at 8pm on a Monday night is: ‘can we get somewhere to train on a Tuesday?’ We shouldn’t be doing that.

“We should be organising what kind of session we want to be putting on every day throughout the week leading up to the game on a Saturday.”