THIS summer's playing prospects, the cost of pushing forward with a £9m ground re-development plan and club finances were the hot topics at Kent County Cricket Club's annual meeting on Monday.

Only 165 of the club's 4,400 members attended the meeting to hear presentations by club treasurer Alister Dunning, chairman of cricket Graham Johnson and chief executive Paul Millman, who told the meeting the latest news on the St Lawrence redevelopment scheme.

Mr Millman explained that, following a recent site meeting by Canterbury City councillors, an extraordinary meeting of the development control committee planned for April 2 had now been scrapped after councillors asked the club to provide more information on floodlighting, drainage and vehicular access into neighbouring road, St Lawrence Forstal.

Mr Millman said: "This may seem a slow process, but it is not a process that can be taken lightly at any stage.

"It is a major scheme for the city of Canterbury and the club and I think we all recognise that we must make due reference to the planning processes that are in place.

In his presentation, Mr Johnson produced an ECB graph detailing performance levels in four-day cricket of each of the 18 first-class counties between 2001 and 2005 compared to their expenditure on players' wages over the same period.

The club's figures revealed that, over the past two seasons, Kent's squad salaries have remained at £1.2million, some two to £300,000 less than many of their first division competitors.

Mr Johnson said: "Kent come out of this top in terms of four-day performance on a salary base that rates as 12th amongst the 18 counties.

"In a way, this graph sums up the debate we have on the cricket committee in asking ourselves what sort of a cricket club the membership wants. We don't go mad on our budget, but these figures show we are doing a reasonable job."

In explaining the committee's decision to bring in South African Ryan McLaren as a second Kolpak player, rather than sign an English-qualified pace bowler, Mr Johnson revealed 10 county seamers had been considered as potential targets only to be discarded.

Kent looked at Richard Johnson, James Ormond, Chad Keegan, Tim Murtagh, Graham Napier, Mohammad Ali, Ben Phillips, James Tomlinson, David Masters and Billy Taylor, before opting for McLaren.

Mr Johnson added: "All bar two of those bowlers would have proved significantly more expensive had we opted to sign them over the player we have bought in, McLaren."

In his honorary treasurer's report, Mr Dunning explained that he expected Kent to make further losses in 2007, but at a lower rate than the previous two years.

He admitted the club had a bank overdraft of 161,000 pounds having already spent 500,000 pounds on professional fees and costs relating to the redevelopment plan, but under the terms of the agreements in place with the club's hotel and construction partners, Radisson and Persimmon Homes, he expected at least £300,000 of that figure to be refunded.

The election for five vacancies on the general committee from six candidates resulted in three-year terms for Mark Baker White (597 votes), Paul Box-Grainger (571) and Derek Underwood (754).

Management consultant Jo Rice (550) and retired Metropolitan Police inspector John Clark (492) were each elected for one year, with SeaFrance sales director Bill Laidlaw as the unlucky candidate to miss out by 15 votes.

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