NSWE Investment

[pablo_picasso]

Ultimately, Aston Hall is council owned. A council who are bankrupt. I'm sure they'd accept a generous offer.

It's not the purchasing of the land/building thats the problem for grade 1 listed buildings.

Planning is tight as fuck as they want to protect the building & its surroundings.

Any planning permissions have to ok'd by getting listed building consent from the planning authority & any work has to be ok'd by a conservation officer.

Those people have to ok every single change & if there is a deviation from the planning, even ones that are necessary for whatever reason, it's right back to planning authorities for consent again.

And they can say no, to the whole thing after you have done a shit ton of work.

Don't get me wrong, I am absolutely no expert in this field, but I do know that it is a fucking minefield.

[chrisw1]

I agree, you could take a portion of the bank without too much negative impact on the Hall itself.  Together with a road closure, this would create a decent amount of space.  It may not be considered as ideal by the council / planners, but to make an omelette sometimes you have to break a few eggs and they'd need to decide if the benefits of an upgraded stadium is worth it.

[Percy McCarthy]

Why would someone cough up the best part of a billion pounds? What’s in it for them?

They get their money back with interest over the 20-30 years of the investment repayments. But instead of Villa working on a current seasonal turnover of £100 mil, we could be working off £150 mil, the extra £50m is spilt between paying back the loans and interest and investing more in the team. And those are low balling. Tottenham went from £200mil turnover in WHL, to £630mil after they rebuilt. Of course they also had CL in there.

Fucking hell. Chicago Lion must eat a lot of pies.

He has moved to London now hasn't he? I meant Champs League.

I know.

[pablo_picasso]

I agree, you could take a portion of the bank without too much negative impact on the Hall itself.  Together with a road closure, this would create a decent amount of space.  It may not be considered as ideal by the council / planners, but to make an omelette sometimes you have to break a few eggs and they'd need to decide if the benefits of an upgraded stadium is worth it.

Which road?

Cos we could just build over the road like at the Vicente Calderón Stadium, if necessary.

[The Edge]

Essentially there are 3 realistic options as far as I can see, which I assume are being assessed with the new board appointees:

1 - Comprehensive rebuild of North Stand and Witton Lane, then renovations to rest of ground.  This would need the purchase of some or all of the houses on Holte Road and potentially Yew Tree Road.

2 - Rebuild stadium adjacent to current site (similar to Spurs) - we might be able to achieve that by purchasing the properties backing onto the current site on Witton Lane, as well as all properties and land between Witton Lane, Station Road, Manor Road and Witton Station, extending stadium footprint down to new academy building.

3 - New build stadium elsewhere, presumably closer to the city centre.

If it was the centrepiece of a whole regeneration of Aston, then my preference would be the second.  It potentially limits the number of residents/businesses affected, joins up the ground and academy sites, and we could in theory integrate Witton Station into the stadium complex, similar to how it works at Wembley.

Number 2 for me. 100%. And I do think the clincher as far as the council is concerned would be the regeneration of the area immediately around the stadium including Witton Station. Just because somewhere is run down now it shouldn't be condemned to being that way forever. Having a huge football club in the area should be considered an advantage not a problem. Get it done.

[Risso]

Ultimately, Aston Hall is council owned. A council who are bankrupt. I'm sure they'd accept a generous offer.

It's not the purchasing of the land/building thats the problem for grade 1 listed buildings.

Planning is tight as fuck as they want to protect the building & its surroundings.

Any planning permissions have to ok'd by getting listed building consent from the planning authority & any work has to be ok'd by a conservation officer.

Those people have to ok every single change & if there is a deviation from the planning, even ones that are necessary for whatever reason, it's right back to planning authorities for consent again.

And they can say no, to the whole thing after you have done a shit ton of work.

Don't get me wrong, I am absolutely no expert in this field, but I do know that it is a fucking minefield.

If you look at the listing below, I reckon you'd get planning for the bit labelled A, but nowhere else and especially not the marked B. Is that bit where the sports pitches are big enough to make that much of a difference? Not sure.

[john2710]

As others have said, I think we are in the process of moving to a new stadium over the next decade. If we've got to knock down & rebuild half of the exisiting stadium & add significant improvements to the other half to bring it up to modern standards, whilst still playing there makes no sense to me. All within the restrictions of the existing footprint.

With next season being our 150 year anniversary I don't think anything will be announced until after that. They might also want to wait a season or two until we establish ourselves as a team that regulalrly qualifies for Europe. Geographically we should be & are the biggest draw within at least a 50 mile radius & if the performances warrant it, we'll fill the stadium & attract the corporate money.

The only site that looks feasible to me is the gas works area, a mile & half away from Villa Park & the city centre & less than a mile away from the HS2 link. There may be good reasons why this is a non starter & the transport infrastructure may be no better than or worse than what we have. I go to Villa Park by car because it takes me an hour to walk to my car & drive home whereas it takes 2 hours if I get the train. If I had the choice I'd go by train, the current set up makes that impractical.

[tomd2103]

Ultimately, Aston Hall is council owned. A council who are bankrupt. I'm sure they'd accept a generous offer.

It's not the purchasing of the land/building thats the problem for grade 1 listed buildings.

Planning is tight as fuck as they want to protect the building & its surroundings.

Any planning permissions have to ok'd by getting listed building consent from the planning authority & any work has to be ok'd by a conservation officer.

Those people have to ok every single change & if there is a deviation from the planning, even ones that are necessary for whatever reason, it's right back to planning authorities for consent again.

And they can say no, to the whole thing after you have done a shit ton of work.

Don't get me wrong, I am absolutely no expert in this field, but I do know that it is a fucking minefield.

If you look at the listing below, I reckon you'd get planning for the bit labelled A, but nowhere else and especially not the marked B. Is that bit where the sports pitches are big enough to make that much of a difference? Not sure.

Area B is a cricket pitch and is on top of the bank.   A is where the astro turf pitch is and there is some land both in front and behind that

I'm no architect at all so dont know the logistics, but I think if they were to use that land for the redevelopment then the pitch might need to be turned around and part of Trinity Road closed.  Would probably need a complete rebuild though, so where would we play while that was happening?

[kippaxvilla2]

If we move to that park opposite the trinity isn’t it going to be difficult playing uphill in the 2nd half if we lose the toss?

[Clampy]

If we move to that park opposite the trinity isn’t it going to be difficult playing uphill in the 2nd half if we lose the toss?

I dunno. Yeovil had a sloping pitch.

[AlexAlexCropley]

Talking of listed buildings, was the old Trinity ever listed?

[kippaxvilla2]

Yes but Doug just ignored it. And built his Lego set instead.

[tomd2103]

As others have said, I think we are in the process of moving to a new stadium over the next decade. If we've got to knock down & rebuild half of the exisiting stadium & add significant improvements to the other half to bring it up to modern standards, whilst still playing there makes no sense to me. All within the restrictions of the existing footprint.

With next season being our 150 year anniversary I don't think anything will be announced until after that. They might also want to wait a season or two until we establish ourselves as a team that regulalrly qualifies for Europe. Geographically we should be & are the biggest draw within at least a 50 mile radius & if the performances warrant it, we'll fill the stadium & attract the corporate money.

The only site that looks feasible to me is the gas works area, a mile & half away from Villa Park & the city centre & less than a mile away from the HS2 link. There may be good reasons why this is a non starter & the transport infrastructure may be no better than or worse than what we have. I go to Villa Park by car because it takes me an hour to walk to my car & drive home whereas it takes 2 hours if I get the train. If I had the choice I'd go by train, the current set up makes that impractical.

I used to park for work right next to the gasworks.  It's probably only a 5-10 minute walk from the fire station island there through the University so not too far from the city centre. 

[dave.woodhall]

Yes but Doug just ignored it. And built his Lego set instead.

It was never listed as it had been altered too.much.

[Risso]

The gas holders site seems like a decent idea. Loads of space there, and not that densely populated by businesses. I did a screenshot of Google maps, and there seems to be three big warehouse type places next to the actual holders. The squate I've drawn on it is 20 acres, which is bigger than the current site by 3 acres.


If they wanted more than that if they bought the area with the playing field to the right, that extends the footprint considerably. I guess the transport links aren't much better, but you have got Duddeston train station about the same distance away as Aston is now I guess. Overall, it looks slightly less hemmed in than Villa Park is, where I think the main issue is the narrowness of the smaller streets of the main routes. What be the main problems with this as an area?