“The lights are still on and so is the heating. Go to any other closed greyhound stadium and it will be derelict.”

Despite the sale of his track to Fermor Land LLP, former promoter Lord Hesketh is not ruling out the return of greyhound racing to Towcester.

He said: “There is no point in attempting to re-open without the commitment from interested parties, or a group of interested parties, to make it viable. So I am not prepared to comment on a date.

“But we have been driven into exploring parts of the world that we would never have considered in the past and there are people with an interest out there. Whether that deal can be achieved remains to be seen, though I am more confident than I was three months ago.”

Interestingly, Hesketh believes that Towcester, which closed in August, would have had a better chance of succeeding had it been opening in 2019 and not 2014.

He said: “The technology wasn’t there at the time. It would have cost us £120,000 a month to broadcast back then and we didn’t have that type of money, particularly since the volume of betting on-line was considerably smaller than it is now.

“But we now have the technology on site to deliver pictures to anywhere in the world and, in my opinion, greyhound racing will be in greater demand than horse racing.

“The only certainty is that if a deal is secured, it would not include the UK High Street bookmakers. In my view, that model is unsustainable in the long term, not just for Towcester but greyhound racing in general.

“When we ran a short trial with Lads Bible on-line, one Tuesday we had 250,000 hits, which would compare to 20,000 viewers that the SKY programme would have achieved. I don’t pretend to have the exact blueprint as to how the product should best be delivered but it is clear that greyhound racing has to evolve to survive.”

Re-opening the track would present considerable obstacles. Towcester closed owing an apparent six figure sum to GBGB in license fees and its training strength has long since been absorbed, mainly by SIS tracks.

Hesketh said: “We would be looking at quality over quantity with open racing or very high quality graded racing. Twelve races at a thousand pounds per race.”

Presumably on Saturday nights?

“Not necessarily. That would be down to the requirement of any contract. Saturday night may not suit some of the people to whom we have been speaking.

“As for the GBGB, we would have to see whether they tried to prevent us from operating, at which point I would bring in the lawyers.”