Villa Park Redevelopment

[Drummond]

I responded to him on twitter... So he accused people who didn't agree as being sensitive virtue signallers....

'We're not sensitive virtue signallers, we just don't like you(r opinions).

So he blocked me...

Haha

[FatSam]

Never really looked at a map of the are before - but it looks like you could rebuild on the a combination of the existing site and part of Aston Park across Trinity Road (if the council were willing to be supportive etc).

The lost amenity of the park could be relocated nearby (they use it for cage football from what I can see at the moment).

Aston Park is the grounds of a Grade I listed Jacobean Manor House. Extending the Trinity Road stand over the road was itself fairly extreme. I might be wrong, but I don’t think it’s realistic to start appropriating land from within the park, regardless of any reprovision of amenity. I think the most that might be possible is to extend the Holte End over the road also. This is not ideal though, as a significant amount of the space that is required for circulation and access within the stand is lost to the road.

[PeterWithe]

They built a play area in the park and the council have sold off shit loads of parkland elsewhere so I’d doubt it’s totally off the table.

[dave.woodhall]

I responded to him on twitter... So he accused people who didn't agree as being sensitive virtue signallers....

'We're not sensitive virtue signallers, we just don't like you(r opinions).

So he blocked me...

Haha

That's an improvement. Anyone who doesn't agree with some of his other stuff is a lefty nonce.

[FatSam]

Rebuilding probably becomes the better option if you feel that despite re-developing the North Stand, commercial/corporate/hospitality income remains very limited and/or there might be a need to further increase capacity again.

I think this is right. The new Witton End will obviously increase match day revenue considerably, but is there still a ceiling on both match day and non match day revenue just by virtue of the location? Similarly, the capacity will supposedly increase to 52k, but is the cost of increasing it further disproportionately expensive?

It’s tricky, we all want Villa to be the best that they can be, but what are we willing to lose to achieve it? It hasn’t been a question that we’ve had to grapple with under previous owners, or perhaps the stakes just haven’t been as high due to the trajectory that football has taken. I was upset when the old Trinity Road stand was replaced, but the intention as obviously to advance the club, and continue to compete.

I’ve written before about how important it is to me that Villa continue to play on the same rectangle of grass that they have for the last 125 years, but the fact is that many of our greatest achievements were made at Perry Barr, and we moved to Aston Lower Grounds to advance the club.

Yes, West Ham fans were not happy to leave the Boleyn Ground, but the fact is they’re currently enjoying their greatest period of success for 40 years. Also, the London Stadium wasn’t built for them, they are just renting it.

[London Villan]

The IMI site would have been a perfect site for rebuild - but a lot of development has taken place there over the past 15-20 years.

That said. it's slightly more viable to do, as ultimately they are big distribution sheds (and the wholesale market) and would be more motivated to move by cash, rather than any emotional ties to home etc. But probably a non starter too.

[paul_e]

The plot of land feom that image earlier is clearly ridiculous, but to make a 60k stadium with full facilities there are 2 problems to solve:

1. Witton Lane
2 Holte/Trinity corner

To start with the latter the onlt viable option is to take some land from the park and move the road, we've done as much as we can with the road in it's current course. The problem with this is that I don't think you gain enough (it's maybe a couple of thousand seats) for it to worth the cost or disruption it creates.

On the Witton side you're probably looking at buying pretty much all of Holte Road and McGregor Close (certainly everything on the same as as the ground), removing the entire section of Witton lane between Holte Road and Station Road and creating a new spine road along the current route of holte/mcgregor and linking back up at the current Station Road junction. So ~50-70 houses a small park and a community basketball court, along with 3 roads being removed or replaced. I'm not sure if even that is viable within a decade.

[PeterWithe]

Am I being unreasonable when I think that rerouting Witton lane and Trinity Rd, or closing the latter entirely, isn’t that big a leap to give the City an international class stadium with all the jobs and tax revenue that brings?
 
Local residents might like the traffic calming benefits it brings

[OCD]

Gross oversimplification.

Maybe the club could adopt a long-term approach though where anytime a property goes onto the market, we purchase it for market value. Then put it back on the market as a rental property until such time that blocks have eventually built up and we can re-purpose the land.

No intimidation tactics and Liverpool cited as an example of how not to do it.

The problem is that, unless you do the horrible shitty stuff Liverpool did - which I would not want us to do - then that can take literally decades.

I did say long-term! The Chinese tend to plan decades ahead. If we had someone with long-term thinking 30/40 years ago, we'd be there or nearly there now.

[Percy McCarthy]

Gross oversimplification.

Maybe the club could adopt a long-term approach though where anytime a property goes onto the market, we purchase it for market value. Then put it back on the market as a rental property until such time that blocks have eventually built up and we can re-purpose the land.

No intimidation tactics and Liverpool cited as an example of how not to do it.

The problem is that, unless you do the horrible shitty stuff Liverpool did - which I would not want us to do - then that can take literally decades.

I did say long-term! The Chinese tend to plan decades ahead. If we had someone with long-term thinking 30/40 years ago, we'd be there or nearly there now.

Yes, long-term thinking and planning is vital. If the plan is to expand further, and there’s no prospect of that happening after we build the new North Stand, then there’s no point spending £100m on the new North Stand. Everybody needs to be on board with what happens after that - if indeed we do hold out hope to go to 60/70k.

[London Villan]

As we are likely to stay on the current site, then it would make more sense to move the pitch 15-20m north when we build the new stand. That would then free up more space at the Holte End end of the plot for a bigger stand. But that is a very long term view.

[pauliewalnuts]

As we are likely to stay on the current site, then it would make more sense to move the pitch 15-20m north when we build the new stand. That would then free up more space at the Holte End end of the plot for a bigger stand. But that is a very long term view.

Eh? How would that work?

We build a new stand and shift the pitch 20m in that direction?

Can you imagine Flin5tone's justifiable anger at the people in the Trinity and Witton finding themselves looking at a pitch in a different post code?

That wouldn't be about building a new stand, it would be about building an entire new stadium on the current site in one go.

[Villan For Life]

As we are likely to stay on the current site, then it would make more sense to move the pitch 15-20m north when we build the new stand. That would then free up more space at the Holte End end of the plot for a bigger stand. But that is a very long term view.

That sounds very Molineux during the 1980’s. In between redevelopment phases the Holte would be a very long way from the pitch.

[Louzie0]

We could have a long jump/ pole vault / bmx circuit in front of the Holte.
Sport site flexibility.
I’m sure they’d understand.

[FatSam]

Yes, long-term thinking and planning is vital. If the plan is to expand further, and there’s no prospect of that happening after we build the new North Stand, then there’s no point spending £100m on the new North Stand. Everybody needs to be on board with what happens after that - if indeed we do hold out hope to go to 60/70k.

Yes, that’s exactly the point.