Villa Park Redevelopment

[chrisw1]

Incidentally a few months ago we resubmitted the plans without Villa Live.

Why didn’t we pause the whole thing then?

They wanted to downgrade Villa Live.  There was no reason not to resubmit the stand at the same time to retain the planning permission.

[Risso]

I agree with you also on the extra 2000/3000 seats. It's not feasible.

Also there's no planning application in to do it, so it wouldn't be happening anytime soon, even if they were telling the truth about it.

[exigo]

The only feasible way to add anywhere near 3,000 seats into the existing stand footprint would be to dig the pitch down and put in extra rows at the front. And we all know that's not happening.

[Ads]

The thing is, the thought of a brand new Villa Park on the existing site is really exciting, even it would mean playing our home games in Leicester or Wolverhampton for a couple of years.

It also solves an issue of spending £100m to still lag seriously behind because your other 3 stands cannot offer what the North can. More importantly you've spent 9 figure sums to not gain anything on the other 7 or 8 clubs you're competing with.

[Risso]

The only feasible way to add anywhere near 3,000 seats into the existing stand footprint would be to dig the pitch down and put in extra rows at the front. And we all know that's not happening.

You've got the four corners, with the two either side of the North being the obvious targets. But it wouldn't be a quick or easy job at all. You'd have to knock down what's there already, put the seats in somehow, and then think about what you do with the roof so that they're covered. It would end up being a right botch job and looking shit, and I don't think for a second that they're going to do it.

[Villan82]

Surprised some of you trust Heck to lead a full rebuild after his design prowess on the club crest.

I think a full rebuild is a complex, complex process that could easily go very badly indeed, especially now that we have established the existing stadium as a real fortress. I really would prefer them to do the North Stand and then do the Witton. Between 1993-1995 we got a brand new Witton and a brand new Holte so it could be done.

I actually don't like the idea of a single tier Holte as I think the banners hanging off the top tier is something that has sort ot become part of Villa culture over the past three decades.

[Chris Harte]

I agree with you also on the extra 2000/3000 seats. It's not feasible.

Also there's no planning application in to do it, so it wouldn't be happening anytime soon, even if they were telling the truth about it.

Actually, that's a very good point.

Unless of course they're just going to shrink everyone's seats. Some of us might end up on something like a bicycle seat, evoquing memories of the old Yellow Pages ad - "be lark sittin' on t'razor blade".

* If you're under about 45 you'll likely have no clue what I'm on about.

[VILLA MOLE]

I agree with you also on the extra 2000/3000 seats. It's not feasible.

Also there's no planning application in to do it, so it wouldn't be happening anytime soon, even if they were telling the truth about it.

Actually, that's a very good point.

Unless of course they're just going to shrink everyone's seats. Some of us might end up on something like a bicycle seat, evoquing memories of the old Yellow Pages ad - "be lark sittin' on t'razor blade".

* If you're under about 45 you'll likely have no clue what I'm on about.

' I was right about that saddle though '

[algy]

The thing is, the thought of a brand new Villa Park on the existing site is really exciting, even it would mean playing our home games in Leicester or Wolverhampton for a couple of years.

It also solves an issue of spending £100m to still lag seriously behind because your other 3 stands cannot offer what the North can. More importantly you've spent 9 figure sums to not gain anything on the other 7 or 8 clubs you're competing with.

I'm with Ads here.  Aside from burning £100m, all we achieve is having slightly more seats than Sunderland.  We've got the 8th biggest ground in England rather than the 9th biggest ground in England.  Meanwhile, we've still got 3 stands that can't offer what the North Stand can offer, and realistically if we redeveloped them would be exactly the same size as they currently are as there's no room for them to be any bigger.  And that won't change unless we bulldoze the new £100m stand.

I'm reserving judgement on the North Stand redevelopment for a little while.  If it's genuinely a 'do nothing' approach then they've fucked up massively.  If it's a case that we're looking at a complete redevelopment of Villa Park then it makes no sense whatsoever to rebuild the NS this summer.  If we're moving grounds completely ... well, it depends on how soon, I guess.  But it still might not make sense to spend money if we don't see a long term future in the existing Trinity Road and/or Holte End stands.

[dave.woodhall]

I agree with you also on the extra 2000/3000 seats. It's not feasible.

Also there's no planning application in to do it, so it wouldn't be happening anytime soon, even if they were telling the truth about it.

I don't know about these things but would adding about 7% more seats and not doing much external work need permission?

[Risso]

I agree with you also on the extra 2000/3000 seats. It's not feasible.

Also there's no planning application in to do it, so it wouldn't be happening anytime soon, even if they were telling the truth about it.

I don't know about these things but would adding about 7% more seats and not doing much external work need permission?

Well it depends on how they were planning to do it, but anything in the corners would require some fairly big construction, so almost certainly, yes. I'm no expert either, but 3,000 seats is a lot of people, and of course that's going to have an effect on existing facilities and safety measures. As an aside, 3,000 more people trying to get served at half time in the existing crappy facilities isn't going to be much fun for anybody.

[Somniloquism]

I agree with you also on the extra 2000/3000 seats. It's not feasible.

Also there's no planning application in to do it, so it wouldn't be happening anytime soon, even if they were telling the truth about it.

I don't know about these things but would adding about 7% more seats and not doing much external work need permission?

It would need to be passed through the departments who inspect and sign off the safety requirements of the ground, especially with a 5-8% increase in capacity. And Wolves submitted a planning application for the crappy 500 seat extension they added in the corners.

[paul_e]

I agree with you also on the extra 2000/3000 seats. It's not feasible.

Also there's no planning application in to do it, so it wouldn't be happening anytime soon, even if they were telling the truth about it.

I don't know about these things but would adding about 7% more seats and not doing much external work need permission?

Well it depends on how they were planning to do it, but anything in the corners would require some fairly big construction, so almost certainly, yes. I'm no expert either, but 3,000 seats is a lot of people, and of course that's going to have an effect on existing facilities and safety measures. As an aside, 3,000 more people trying to get served at half time in the existing crappy facilities isn't going to be much fun for anybody.

The first part of that is what matters. We're all looking at the ground and trying to work out how they could do it but until we see how they plan to actually achieve the increase we're all a bit blind as to what impact it will have. For me that's the worst part of this. Cancelling the plans for the North is fine by me but how it's been justified and how they've hinted at what they're going to do instead has created a bit of a black hole for everyone to throw opinions into.

[jon collett]

I suspect they were just fobbing off the advisory thing rather than giving a statement of intent.

But if they were being serious then adding 3k seats to the corners of the North Stand would require a new roof. I asked Simon Inglis and he agreed.

Restructuring a football ground is not permitted development and requires planning permission and a new safety certificate anyway but in this case it would be fairly extensive reconstruction.

[pauliewalnuts]

If you think this is about 200 seats in Lower Grounds/Terrace View, which is an exercise in making more money from what already exists, then perhaps you're deserving of the contempt those "excuses" given by Heck hold you in.

That is precisely what I mean - you do not need the perceptive brainpower of Sherlock Holmes to see the flaw in that particular argument, but that's what is coming out of them, not selling out by 200 seats.

It's just so easy to demolish that one, they genuinely do think we're idiots.