GREG Lake insists Billericay Town are in safe hands after taking over the club with three other businessmen last week.

Lake - who was already heavily involved with the club’s Ladies teams - David McCartney, Alex Morrissey and Nick Hutt formed a consortium to take control of the National League South side after former owner Glenn Tamplin walked away last month.

But Lake concedes he is going into the unknown having never met the three other members of the new ownership before attempting to strike a deal.

“David has been involved in a club in Ireland - St James’ Swifts - but the rest of us haven’t so this is all new to us,” said Lake in his first interview since the takeover.

“We weren’t looking to get involved until Glenn walked away.

“David then contacted me and Nick, from the colts’ perspective, to see what we could do to make sure this club keeps going.

“We decided to come together and form a consortium because we all have the same ambitions, but we had never met each other before that time.

“Thankfully, we all get on very well and built a relationship quickly.

“We all want to make Billericay Town a community club which is stable and get the local people involved.

“It made sense to form a consortium and I’m really pleased we have done it.

“But it’s important to remember that we are merely custodians of the club.

“This club has been here a long time before us and it will be here a long time after we leave.

“Success, for me, would be making Billericay Town a sustainable community club.”

Having seen former Premier League stars such as Paul Konchesky and Jermaine Pennant feature for Billericay during Tamplin’s time in charge, Lake insists the short-term aim is to make the club sustainable.

And the consortium are keen for the first team, ladies teams and Colts sides to come together.

Lake added: “In the short-term, we want to bring some sustainability and order to the club.

“Before we took over the club, there were uncertain times but the club and fanbase owe Glenn a great deal of gratitude.

“Now it’s time to make the club stable and also make sure we live within our means.

“We need to make sure that Jamie O’Hara has what he needs to make us a competitive side.

“I was shocked to find out that there are more than 40 clubs playing under the Billericay Town name and we want all of those teams to be under the same umbrella.

“In the long-term, we want to build a pathway between the youth teams and the first team.

“We want to have an under-18 and under-23 team in place to allow players to have that pathway.

“At the moment, our youth teams end at under-16 level and that’s a big gap to bridge if they want to get into a National League South side.”

And Lake confirmed Billericay are looking to install a new training ground.

“We have some land that we want to build a new training pitch and 4G pitches on,” admitted Lake.

“At the moment, our colts teams are training at local schools and we want to get more money coming into the club rather than going out of it.

“Having the first team and colts training on land we own will cut costs and also result in more income coming from the local community if we rent out the 4G pitches.

“We want to make sure all of the players – regardless of what level – colts players’ parents and staff feel part of the same club.”