WIth kickoff still delayed on Forest Green Rovers' long-awaited Eco Park stadium, the gateway Cotswold project at Junction 13 of the M5 appears to be facing a new bump in the road – to the costly tune of £7m.

According to Dale Vince, the National League club's owner, Shire Hall is now asking for the £100m project to include picking up an extra tab for work to create a new half kilometre stretch of dual carriageway on the A419.

Cash-strapped officials at Shire Hall are reported to be insisting that the funding is vital as an infrastructure upgrade to meet what they calculate to be an inevitable increase on traffic, once the first whistle is blown at the Green Devils' new home.

But the green industrialist, who is also the founder and owner of Stroud-based Ecotricity and chair of the Green Britain Group, has dismissed the stipulation as illogical and said Shire Hall is being a "nightmare".

Back in December last year, planners finally approved the nitty-gritty for Mr Vince's vision to create a new stadium as a gateway to the region and future iconic landmark, which will be visible from the M5.

But while the training ground is up and running at the site and such preliminary details as a design for gates to a section of the club's new home continue, construction work on the stadium remains static.

And in the latest episode of Mr Vince's weekly Zerocarbonista podcast, the club owner told broadcaster Ian Collins that Shire Hall appears to be a new spanner in the works.

He said: "We keep making progress – we've got planning permission, we've beaten down most of the 30 planning conditions that stood in the way, we've done a detailed design, we've got blueprints in effect that we can give to builders. We've costed it, everything's going well. But we've got a road issue to crack with the county highways, who are just a nightmare in the whole project.

"There's one junction – Junction 13 of the M5 – the road that leads into Stroud, and the naughty highways people are trying to gain from the position of power that they're in. They're trying to get a dual carriageway built from the local roundabout to the next one, at our expense.

"It's only about a kilometre, but they want it dualled because they say we'll bring a lot more traffic and it's already quite busy there. But the thing is, it's busy in the rush hour from Mondays to Fridays, morning and evening, but football is on a Saturday afternoon or a Tuesday night, and that seems like common sense - we're bringing people in the off-peak.

He added that he saw the request as being opportunistic and it was "all kinds of wrong".

He said: "It's seven million quid – if it was little, I might just waive it away – but at that price, I can't help but blame them."

Punchline-Gloucester.com has requested a response on the claim from Gloucestershire County Council and no statement has been issued.

In other news for Forest Green Rovers, Dale Vince has met with officials from Japan's J League who visited FGR's home to gain more insight into sustainable practices in football.

The J League is the equivalent of England's Premier League, and Mr Vince said he also caught up with representatives from Fukushima FC, the club which, like FGR, is now seeking to build a wooden stadium in a plan which resonates closely with FGR's Eco Park plan.

Mr Vince told Ian Collins: "He said 'We were inspired by yours,' and I thought that was great... he was a lovely man and we swapped information on costs and his is going to cost the same price, but have half the capacity."

Mr Vince said he was buoyed by this insight: "I thought we had the most expensive per seat stadium in the world," he told the visitor, "but you do!"

He added that he is now pencilling a meeting with the club, at its home in Japan, next summer.