Villa Park Redevelopment

[john e]

Mate of mine who has a Everton season ticket says he has to leave an hour earlier now just to get parked and get in on time
Not that he’s to bothered

[algy]

Max on Tour said it was a half hour walk from town and that he wasn't sure how Evertonians got there sooner without the faff of a taxi.

My mate takes the ferry over,

But yeah, he was saying the walk from the perimeter kills his dad.

[FatSam]

But the Purslow plans for the North Stand were pretty much the same size as this version of it, the major difference is that it doesn't mean closing one end of the ground for at least a couple of seasons.

Yes, pretty much the same. I’m assuming the difference is down to avoiding having to redirect the below ground utilities that were supposed to be complicating the build (and adding additional cost).

[olaftab]

Mate of mine who has a Everton season ticket says he has to leave an hour earlier now just to get parked and get in on time
Not that he’s to bothered

Found out on Saturday that usual parking places, the streets, have now become resident permit holder only parking. 

[chrisw1]

But the Purslow plans for the North Stand were pretty much the same size as this version of it, the major difference is that it doesn't mean closing one end of the ground for at least a couple of seasons.

Exactly.

I think this is part of the process of finding out what the potential support is on our current site. If there’s untapped demand after we get to 50k plus then there’s another plan to be made. I think if we were going to 60k in the next couple of years we’d have to reduce prices to fill it for many games, and financially speaking, what’s the point of that? Even at 50k, I reckon they’ll sell season tickets to everyone who wants one.

Did Everton sell out on Saturday?

The thing is, the only viable 'next plan' will be to redevelop the North.  If we have long-term ambitions to be a top 4 club we'll need a 60k stadium.  To me it makes sense to build as big as we can on the only land we have now.

[Drummond]

We don't need a 60k stadium. Look at the number of empty seats now for the Europa League as evidence. People will only come if we're successful. Adding 10k is the right amount.

[paul_e]

But the Purslow plans for the North Stand were pretty much the same size as this version of it, the major difference is that it doesn't mean closing one end of the ground for at least a couple of seasons.

Exactly.

I think this is part of the process of finding out what the potential support is on our current site. If there’s untapped demand after we get to 50k plus then there’s another plan to be made. I think if we were going to 60k in the next couple of years we’d have to reduce prices to fill it for many games, and financially speaking, what’s the point of that? Even at 50k, I reckon they’ll sell season tickets to everyone who wants one.

Did Everton sell out on Saturday?

The thing is, the only viable 'next plan' will be to redevelop the North.  If we have long-term ambitions to be a top 4 club we'll need a 60k stadium.  To me it makes sense to build as big as we can on the only land we have now.

Well that's not true, we don't know exactly what is in the plans the council put out recently but 'restoring Villa park into the grounds of Aston Hall' suggests some meaningful changes on the Holte and Trinity side of the ground. This is clearly something the club have been working with the council on to come up with plans that work for both the club and the city. Without knowledge of that no one knows what is going to become viable over the next 4-5years.

Aside from that the Purslow plan also required work not just on the north stand but also that end of both the trinity and DE stands, partly to join up the corners, I don't know how much of the difference betweent he 2 stands was entirely a result of that but there will clearly be an option to implement some of that still, which will make the size difference even smaller than the 1500 seats it is right now. With the time we've spent shifting things around already, and the next phase(s) of that to come we're actually going to have a bigger ground under this plan than anything that was actually designed under Purslow.

Either way though getting up to 60k means work on the DE, which comes back to working with the council and finding ways to use the development of the ground to help the council with their targets as well. If we can find something that works for both sides then the chances of us getting the support to do the work we really need are clearly much better.

[chrisw1]

I'm not sure what you mean by 'meaningful changes' on the Holte & Trinity.  But the way I see it, without a wholesale redevelopment of the Holte there is very little scope for significant expansion of those two stands.  Yes we could grab a bit back from the corner, but that would add hundreds not thousands of seats.  We could possibly wrap the stand, but if we were going to wrap then the North would make far more sense both in terms of ease of development and aesthetically.

I don't think that cost-benefit-wise there's any chance of anything happening with those two stands (other than implementing the currently planned optimisation) and certainly not in the next 4-5 years.

I agree with what you say re DE, but it's simply not going to happen.  CPO is an incredibly difficult and time-consuming process and I just don't see that happening in the next 20 years.   

I appreciate it's all opinions and we all have one.  But people on here spent the last 3 years telling me that we would definitely be relocating or rebuilding and here we are with a minimal refurb.  It is my guess that that is all that will get done in the foreseeable future and certainly in the next 10 years.

Our opportunity to compete is now, not in a decades time.

[London Villan]

Purslow's plan saw a massive remodelling of the northern third of the Trinity, significant reprofiling of the seats, new dressing rooms, media centre, medical rooms and more hospitality in the Trinity and then better physical link with the Witton Lane stand.