MARTYN Phillips admits it will come down to an issue of trust over whether the Welsh Rugby Union are given the green light for their takeover of Newport Gwent Dragons – but has stressed he believes it is the only way forward for rugby at Rodney Parade.

The governing body have announced details of their proposed deal to take over the Dragons and ownership of the historic ground.

A heads of terms agreement has been reached with the Dragons board but it must be ratified by the shareholders of Newport RFC.

An EGM will be held next month – 21 days' notice must be given – and the deal has to be given the approval by 75 per cent of voters present.

That is far from a certainty but the WRU have outlined their plans with chief executive Phillips warning, "We want to be there for many years to come (at Rodney Parade), if this doesn’t happen it will be weeks".

They intend to drop Newport and Gwent from the name to become purely the Dragons while their ambition is to put down an artificial pitch after being put under pressure from Guinness PRO12 chiefs about the stage of the current surface.

All existing staff, players and coaches would become employees of the WRU on July 1 while a new board would be appointed.

There is no timeframe or guarantees over the length that professional rugby will be played at Rodney Parade while Newport RFC will not have a long-term lease, although Phillips said, "we are not going to these lengths and making this level investment for anything other than the long-term health of rugby in Gwent".

They have had discussions with Newport City Council and hope a takeover would attract fresh private investment by removing barriers currently in place because of the complex corporate structure.

Now the fate of the deal is in the hands of Newport RFC shareholders and Phillips, while hopeful they will give the go-ahead, won't give it the big sell.

"I genuinely don't want to try and convince them because I respect their decision and it's their choice," said Phillips.

"But what I would say is that we have done everything we can to try and make this attractive for a range of stakeholders, whether that's Gwent as a rugby entity, the professional entity of the Dragons, Newport RFC having their historical home preserved.

"There is quite a lot of things to balance but we have come up with something that we hope can work for everybody.

"The alternative is just beyond me. The difficult thing is that in a way people are going to have to take us on trust. You need to trust us that we have gone to these lengths because we are desperately serious about rugby in Gwent.

"It comes down to a choice and we would never want to force people or try to oversell something. We are setting the facts out as we see them, then people make a choice and we all have to live with the consequences.

"Historical events have got us to where we are today. All I can do is try to give a solution for the future but it's impossible to give everybody what they want, we are trying to navigate our way through to the best of our ability.

"I know that I can look myself in the mirror and say that I have done the best I possibly can in the situation. If people choose to not do it then I can live with it, but what I couldn't live with is just watching it go down."

Phillips met with the Friends of Newport Rugby last week to discuss their concerns but stresses that a no vote is likely to lead to the collapse of any deal rather than a fresh offer.

"I'd like to think we'd always listen but we've been working on this quite a long time and have come up with the only way forward," he said.

"If someone came up with something blinding then fair enough but it's been a big distraction and we have a lot of other responsibilities, so I think we'd say we've put our best foot forward and have to move on."