Villa Park Redevelopment

[SoccerHQ]

Captain hindsight here but they really should've done the attempted rebuild during lockdown.

It would've been incredibly risky given the serious threat of relegation but ultimately we'd shown for 18 months 42k were turning up every two weeks and that has continued since fans have returned.

Clearly there are other issues in play and as said it's not enough for 42k scaling up to 52k paying a minimum of 40 quid or season ticket prices to get in, there has to be a more premium fan in aswell to justify the numbers and that's having some teething issues to put it mildly this season!

We're on the up but we're not London so really not sure when the North gets rebuilt if that's the sole criteria that has forced Heck to make the decision to shelve the plans.

I love the view from the North if you're in the front 7-8 rows but it's the sort of stand you could get away with if we we went back to pulling in 33/34k. Full houses every week and you see the extreme limitations. I last sat up there for Palace game this season, arrived at 2.40pm and the queue was already past the incline up the steps so you're always going to miss kick off if you turn up pretty late. Not helped by not being able to enter the other side due to reconfiguration of parking spaces and making the coaches park bigger.

In short term they need to sort that out as too many people are missing kick off even when turning up in reasonable amount of time.

Any decent alternative sites then? When discussed a few years back that large site past Smithfields was popular but seems all of the plot has been snapped up.

Around the Jewellery Quarter would be cool with decent transport links and still close enough to Aston to feel "home" but just seems to be flats going up.

NEC remains the nuclear option but I assume would be considered aswell.

[VillaTim]

what about Lichfield given all of our support live there (according to the smurfs down the road)

[Dogtanian]

I reckon it would be on the same site. Keeps the history and we already own most of the land we’d need.

The big drawback is the transition and having to ground share.

[olaftab]

Villa restoring 52K plan as it was will help Andy Street with his business case.

[VillaTim]

The plans that they had in place and got approves look pretty good to me . I'm not sure why you'd want to rethink it

[KevinGage]

Wonder if Heck looks at the proposed North Stand development and the limitations of corporates there has put the kybosh on it.

There was a battle with residents when the Doug Ellis was built in 1993/94, owing to the height of that structure and lack of sun etc. It would still be an issue today, but you wouldn't have to go a whole pile higher to build a more modern stand with that sort of small wanky corporate middle tier which is all the rage now for new builds.

It might only give us an extra 5000 or so initially in real terms. But might be more attractive for business types networking and entertaining. Rather than being planted behind a goal.

Might also free up the better seats in the Trinity for people who actually want to watch the game.

[ChicagoLion]

Wonder if Heck looks at the proposed North Stand development and the limitations of corporates there has put the kybosh on it.

There was a battle with residents when the Doug Ellis was built in 1993/94, owing to the height of that structure and lack of sun etc. It would still be an issue today, but you wouldn't have to go a whole pile higher to build a more modern stand with that sort of small wanky corporate middle tier which is all the rage now for new builds.

It might only give us an extra 5000 or so initially in real terms. But might be more attractive for business types networking and entertaining. Rather than being planted behind a goal.

Might also free up the better seats in the Trinity for people who actually want to watch the game.

I don’t see why you would postpone the total project, they could easily reconfigure the internal aspects if they wanted to increase the level of corporate activity.

[amfy]

Captain hindsight here but they really should've done the attempted rebuild during lockdown.

It would've been incredibly risky given the serious threat of relegation but ultimately we'd shown for 18 months 42k were turning up every two weeks and that has continued since fans have returned.

Clearly there are other issues in play and as said it's not enough for 42k scaling up to 52k paying a minimum of 40 quid or season ticket prices to get in, there has to be a more premium fan in aswell to justify the numbers and that's having some teething issues to put it mildly this season!

We're on the up but we're not London so really not sure when the North gets rebuilt if that's the sole criteria that has forced Heck to make the decision to shelve the plans.

I love the view from the North if you're in the front 7-8 rows but it's the sort of stand you could get away with if we we went back to pulling in 33/34k. Full houses every week and you see the extreme limitations. I last sat up there for Palace game this season, arrived at 2.40pm and the queue was already past the incline up the steps so you're always going to miss kick off if you turn up pretty late. Not helped by not being able to enter the other side due to reconfiguration of parking spaces and making the coaches park bigger.

In short term they need to sort that out as too many people are missing kick off even when turning up in reasonable amount of time.

Any decent alternative sites then? When discussed a few years back that large site past Smithfields was popular but seems all of the plot has been snapped up.

Around the Jewellery Quarter would be cool with decent transport links and still close enough to Aston to feel "home" but just seems to be flats going up.

NEC remains the nuclear option but I assume would be considered aswell.

I was mooching around a satellite view of our surrounding area, and looking at the current footprint of Villa Park, in the immediate vicinity 2 things leap out at me -
Powerleague
Our own Academy.
I wouldn’t have thought either of these were big enough if I hadn’t looked at the satellite view, but it actually does look like they are.
So given how easy that seems - there must be something simple I’m missing?

[Louzie0]

Don’t think you’re missing a thing, Amfy.
Merry Christmas 🎄👍

[WassallVillain]

Any decent alternative sites then? When discussed a few years back that large site past Smithfields was popular but seems all of the plot has been snapped up.

Around the Jewellery Quarter would be cool with decent transport links and still close enough to Aston to feel "home" but just seems to be flats going up.

NEC remains the nuclear option but I assume would be considered aswell.

Jag site at castle brom all but mothballed. Massive site great big roads all around it close to mway  A rail link that could have a station built. Just a thought. Chuck n a bit of Tata money as further investors with the Comcast gang and you’d have nearly enough cash to take on the state owned cabal. Also not too far from current location.

Having said all that. I can’t imagine watching from anywhere but Villa Park. Nor do I really want to.

[SoccerHQ]

Any decent alternative sites then? When discussed a few years back that large site past Smithfields was popular but seems all of the plot has been snapped up.

Around the Jewellery Quarter would be cool with decent transport links and still close enough to Aston to feel "home" but just seems to be flats going up.

NEC remains the nuclear option but I assume would be considered aswell.

Jag site at castle brom all but mothballed. Massive site great big roads all around it close to mway  A rail link that could have a station built. Just a thought. Chuck n a bit of Tata money as further investors with the Comcast gang and you’d have nearly enough cash to take on the state owned cabal. Also not too far from current location.

Having said all that. I can’t imagine watching from anywhere but Villa Park. Nor do I really want to.

If people think the bottleneck around VP from 5pm on a Saturday or 10pm on a weeknight is horrendous then wait until they experience it around the Tyburn Island.

Regularly gridlocked coming back from Town on A38 pretty much every weekday at rush hour. Would desperately need to tunnel it or make a flyover but that would probably take a decade to plan and construct with the state the council is in.

All the train stations are 2-3 miles walk aswell compared to VP which has four in reasonably close proximity. Even the annual mythical station pledge at Castle Brom (whenever the local elections are on the horizon) won't be much use as plenty of freight used on that line and national services so you'd get nowhere near service you get on CC Line.

Only way it could work is using the Fort as a sort of park and ride as they did during Commonwealth games.

Really only viable present one is the Alex but even that has a boxed in feel tucked behind the A34 so I'm not really sure what sort of capacity we could get up to if we had to squat there for 18 months, dosen't have a roof either so the novelty would quickly wear off after a few games.

[wince]

Aston Villa  not being in Aston has no appeal to me whatsoever. Just wait and see what happens. Never know, bcc may have sold land from the park to villa.

[VillaTim]

If transport links is the priority then the NEC site wins hands down. Proximity to motorways M42 M6 M5 M40 M69 M1 , railways inc HS2 , airport , plus you have all the other stuff that's there - hotels , resorts world, arena, exhibition centre so travelling fans can make a weekend of a trip. If we were ever to move that would be the place to go.

[IFWaters]

If transport links are the priority build it on top of New Street. A massive Villa Sphere covered in a billion claret and blue pixels.

[The Edge]

If transport links is the priority then the NEC site wins hands down. Proximity to motorways M42 M6 M5 M40 M69 M1 , railways inc HS2 , airport , plus you have all the other stuff that's there - hotels , resorts world, arena, exhibition centre so travelling fans can make a weekend of a trip. If we were ever to move that would be the place to go.

We are not leaving Aston. But if that day ever comes the the NEC would be a massive no no purely on it's location. It's in Solihull for starters bang next to Chelmsely Wood which is nose territory. I couldn't think of anything worse than moving VP there. All our history down the pan in one fell swoop. Horrendous idea.