Villa Park Redevelopment

[danno]

The only solutions if we want to increase capacity in the Witton Lane are to build higher or deeper.

Deeper? Wouldn’t be much of a view down there.

Periscopes

[brontebilly]

Are the expansion plans dependent at all on a capacity upgrade at the train station?

[PeterWithesShin]

What Liverpool did was an absolute disgrace and was pre-planned. Amazing how many of their tinned up houses had fires when they were next to people who wouldn't sell.

[algy]

I don't want us to adopt an approach that would be in anyway comparable to what Liverpool have done.

[paul_e]

The only solutions if we want to increase capacity in the Witton Lane are to build higher or deeper.

Higher - an additional tier - whilst it will increase capacity,  there won't be alot of space for stairs/catering

Deeper - Two alternatives:
Out over Witton Lane - a la Trinity Road
Backwards on the road itself. But that will need the road to be rerouted onto the gardens.
More than likely that both options would meet objections from householders on Holte Road. The answer - buy them out? Think Liverpool did something similar when they expanded Anfield.

Liverpool did it disgracefully, buying the houses as they became available, leaving them empty in an attempt to drive the others away by making the area uninhabitable.

Didn’t we buy the houses on Witton Lane prior to the rebuild? Maybe we could do that again, but not the way Liverpool did it.

What Liverpool did was pretty shitty, but other than buying them one by one, I am not sure how else we could do it?

Work with the council to obtain a compulsory purchase order and work with the community to offset the problem with investment into local problems. Liverpool went the other way and used their financial muscle to force people out and destroyed the community.

There's no nice way to quickly acquire a block of houses for redevelopment, there will always be reasons people don't want to leave but you can at least try to make the process as pain free as possible.

[Risso]

There's no nice way to quickly acquire a block of houses for redevelopment, there will always be reasons people don't want to leave but you can at least try to make the process as pain free as possible.

I'm only guessing, but I think if you offered most people a decent uplift on the market value of their houses on that road and the chance to move to somewhere a bit nicer, they'd probably take it. The inconvenience they face when Villa are at home must be a right pain in the arse for all the local residents, it means on a Saturday from about 4.45 to at least 6pm, driving anywhere is going to take an hour longer than it usually would at least.

[paul_e]

There's no nice way to quickly acquire a block of houses for redevelopment, there will always be reasons people don't want to leave but you can at least try to make the process as pain free as possible.

I'm only guessing, but I think if you offered most people a decent uplift on the market value of their houses on that road and the chance to move to somewhere a bit nicer, they'd probably take it. The inconvenience they face when Villa are at home must be a right pain in the arse for all the local residents, it means on a Saturday from about 4.45 to at least 6pm, driving anywhere is going to take an hour longer than it usually would at least.

I agree, but there will still be some who don't want to go and handling those people properly is the important thing.

[pauliewalnuts]

But at the end you are going to be forcing some of them to leave their homes against their will, so we can demolish them.

There's no real way of putting a shine on it.

Liverpool did it disgracefully, and I wouldn't want us to do that, but ultimately, it's peoples' homes we're talking about.

I've no idea how compulsory purchase orders work with things like football stadiums, which are private businesses, rather than things like public infrastructure. Although having said that, we've done it before so it must be do-able in some way.

[pauliewalnuts]

Villa Park really is in a unique location, both in the grounds of a Grade 1 listed Jacobean stately home on one side of the stadium, and one of the poorest residential areas in the country on the other.

[Risso]

But at the end you are going to be forcing some of them to leave their homes against their will, so we can demolish them.

There's no real way of putting a shine on it.

Liverpool did it disgracefully, and I wouldn't want us to do that, but ultimately, it's peoples' homes we're talking about.

I've no idea how compulsory purchase orders work with things like football stadiums, which are private businesses, rather than things like public infrastructure. Although having said that, we've done it before so it must be do-able in some way.

The council can get involved if they can argue it's part of the regeneration of the area. I think Brentford council issued some CPOs for Brentford's new stadium.

[paul_e]

But at the end you are going to be forcing some of them to leave their homes against their will, so we can demolish them.

There's no real way of putting a shine on it.

Liverpool did it disgracefully, and I wouldn't want us to do that, but ultimately, it's peoples' homes we're talking about.

I've no idea how compulsory purchase orders work with things like football stadiums, which are private businesses, rather than things like public infrastructure. Although having said that, we've done it before so it must be do-able in some way.

The council can get involved if they can argue it's part of the regeneration of the area. I think Brentford council issued some CPOs for Brentford's new stadium.

Yep, this is why community engagement is an important part, the club would need to show that it is a positive influence on the area. The new academy is an important step in that regard, if we could find some way to fund a few other local projects as well it would help.

This isn't about putting a shine on it though, it's about making the best of a bad situation. People get put into this situation for all sorts of reasons and it's never great for them but there's still a range of things you can do and, personally, I'd prefer the club to be on the right end of that particular scale.

[Brend'Watkins]

I look forward to our issues/problems with increasing the capacity of VP to 60,000+ it will mean we have truly been successful over a sustained period. While we all look at Liverpool and their supposedly improper methods securing housing around Anfield it will be something we will have to consider in time should we progress even further.  Maybe even start the process now if some housing becomes available.

[chrisw1]

House prices are a lot more than people think in this area too, this won't be £4o-£50k per house, you're looking at market prices of £170k ish for a 2-3 bed.

The way to do it would have been to responsibly buy them individually as they came available and let them out.  But there will always be some who won't move / seek a ransom price so very difficult without CPO.

But we're probably getting ahead of ourselves.  If the North takes us to 50k and standing adds another 2-3k, then I suspect that will be enough for a good while yet. 

[PeterWithesShin]

THere's nothing supposedly about what Liverpool did. And your last sentence is exactly what Liverpool did. They were buying houses back in the 90s, and as soon as they bought them they put up the metal shutters and left them empty. Houses with nothing wrong with them were deliberately left neglected and empty for well over a decade and as they picked up more and more it had a negative effect on the area.

[paul_e]

House prices are a lot more than people think in this area too, this won't be £4o-£50k per house, you're looking at market prices of £170k ish for a 2-3 bed.

The way to do it would have been to responsibly buy them individually as they came available and let them out.  But there will always be some who won't move / seek a ransom price so very difficult without CPO.

But we're probably getting ahead of ourselves.  If the North takes us to 50k and standing adds another 2-3k, then I suspect that will be enough for a good while yet. 

I don't think we are at all. This isn't something that the club can decide to do in 2026 and have the stand complete 18 months later, just getting a CPO could take years, if there's any thinking that we develop that stand then the planning has to be starting now. It's going to take 3-4 years from start to end for the new North stand and that's land we own with very little planning problems to consider. 10 years would be a fair estimate for the time for witton lane if we want to change the footprint/height it any meaningful way.