Three days before their Guinness Premiership semi-final against London Wasps, Matt Stevens has indicated that he would be prepared to leave Bath if progress and investment are not made in redeveloping the Recreation Ground and improving training facilities and infrastructure at the club.

Stevens, the England prop forward, is not alone in feeling frustrated that the impressive strides made on the field this season in reaching the play-offs and the final of the European Challenge Cup are being undermined by continued uncertainty about the club’s future.

“I have signed a four-year contract, but I have said, and they know it, I will go if something doesn’t get done,” Stevens, who on Tuesday was selected for England’s tour to New Zealand, said. “I love this club. I would say the team is as close to a family as a team can get. We all care a great deal about one another. I am committed to the club, but committed in so far as that commitment is matched by everyone. If it is not, there is a danger the team could break up.”

Stevens’s comments echo those of Steve Borthwick at the end of last season and must have been a factor in the new England captain’s decision, and that of Olly Barkley, to move to Saracens and Gloucester respectively. However, with collective goodwill, Stevens is convinced that Bath can recapture their glorious past and that the winning of a trophy this season will provide the springboard.

“What I would like to see in the next two years is the club getting permission for a new stand and building a rugby excellence centre where we have a facility that stands out, where we can bring players in from around the world and sell the club in what has to be one of the most beautiful rugby settings anywhere. Those two things would make it impossible for Bath not to be a great club again. We would have everyone wanting to play here.

“Whoever makes the decisions for the development in the city has to get off their behind. Bob Calleja, our chief executive, said at our team dinner on Monday night that we might have to revert to shock tactics and leave, and then see what is basically the centre of the city vanish.”

How the long-running saga unfolds remains to be seen. But on the immediate horizon is the semi-final away to Wasps, a side for whom Stevens has the utmost respect. “They’ re big-game winners,” he said. “Time and again, they have shown that they can do it on the big occasion. We have to prove to ourselves that we can walk the walk and are big-match winners, too.

“In terms of rugby, we have what it takes to be Premiership champions. But it is all going to come down to the mental side. To beat Wasps at their ground would lift our confidence sky-high.”

Bath missed out on a home semi-final in the play-offs by losing away to Gloucester last Saturday. Stevens hurt his knee in that match, but is confident that he will be fit to play his part in their bid to reach the final at Twickenham, where amateur players from a club in Britain will also have the chance to feature in a “Guinness Club Together” curtain-raiser.

Stevens has been a key figure in Bath’s outstanding form this season. “Technically, Mike Foley and John Connolly [the former head coaches] left this club in good nick. We have a technical prowess in the forwards that is very difficult to match. That’s the basics. Now we have managed to develop on that. Our offload game has been two or three years in the making. It hasn’t happened overnight.

“What’s good about this team is that we can do everything. We have the forward pack to play ten-man rugby if we have to, but what’s difficult to defend against is a team that can attack you all over the field - in the lineout, the scrum, then put it wide or kick a ball over the top or offload in the tackle. It is everyone offering something.”

— Details of the chance to appear at Twickenham on the day of the final can be found at www.guinness-clubtogether.com