Cook's Lakeside finished fifth in the 2010 Elite League

Lakeside Hammers boss Jon Cook says he will look to freshen up his line-up for next season.

Lee Richardson and Peter Ljung are the only confirmed senior riders for the Hammers' 2011 Elite League campaign.

Cook told BBC Essex: "Those two were the first riders for us to consider for next year and a few of their team-mates will be joining them.

"Hopefully we'll have a couple of new riders and we'll be able to push on with a very exciting season."

Swede Ljung, 28, arrived at the Arena-Essex Raceway on loan from Swindon in August, scoring 35 points in his six meetings for the Hammers.

It costs a lot of money to be running at an Elite League level and there's only nine teams in the country capable of doing that at the moment Lakeside Hammers co-promoter Jon Cook

Richardson, 31, finished the campaign as the league's fifth best scorer, with an average of 9.13, as Lakeside narrowly missed out on the play-offs.

Co-promoter Cook will wait until the conclusion of this week's British Speedway Promoters' Association's AGM before finalising any deals for next season.

The meeting, which will define the rules and regulations for the 2011 calendar, is likely to involve discussions about the future structure of speedway leagues in the country.

Ipswich Witches have been supporters of increasing the amount of teams in the Elite League, something Cook sees as a good idea, but difficult to implement.

"Obviously we'd prefer to be in a slightly bigger league, but it costs a lot of money to be running at an Elite League level and there's only nine teams in the country capable of doing that at the moment," he said.

"If we bring those costs down slightly to attract a few more teams we'd certainly, as a club, be in favour of that, and we'd hope that one or two of our fellow members would feel the same.

"We'll go and talk through our views in the right situation, we certainly need a longer-term plan that what we have at the moment."

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