The contract to design and build a 30,000-seater stadium in Milton Keynes has been awarded to the Silverstone-based Buckingham Group.

The 拢42m stadium, provisionally called the New National Bowl, will be the home of Milton Keynes Football Club from autumn 2006.

The client is Inter MK, which is headed by MK Dons chair Pete Winkelman. He said: 鈥淎fter seven years, we have at last reached a point where we can commence construction of the stadium.

We are absolutely delighted that the project is to be built by a locally based company, ensuring that the skills, materials and labour can be sourced as part of the wider growth agenda for Milton Keynes.鈥�

As well as a UEFA-standard stadium, the project will include a 6500-capacity indoor arena.

The stadium will be built on a mixed-use development site at Denbigh, near Bletchley, to the south of the city. Other developments on the site include an Asda supermarket, a major non-food retail outlet, leisure facilities, a hotel and offices.

The privately owned Buckingham Group operates in civils, remediation, building and rail. Buckingham group chairman Paul Wheeler said: 鈥淭his is a further exciting step forward for the business in our continued development as a design-and-build contractor.鈥�