Villa Park redevelopment

[brommy]

40 minutes ago, Captain_Townsend said:

I am beginning to think they have over complicated this by planning on incorporating new dressing rooms, moving the tunnel etc. This has no doubt made the stand a more complex project and will also involve a lot of reconfiguration of the Trinity- our newest stand.

I would ne inclined to just get a new stand up and then figure out the Witton Lane.

That would be a catalogue of missed opportunities.

Villa have obviously identified what the possibilities are and will tackle the issues at the first and best opportunity. It might add 5% or 10% and another month or two but on a project costing £100m+, probably over a two year timeline, it's very little pain for long term gain.

Not doing it in the next phase, people would be looking back in a decade's time and saying - these facilities could have been so much better - why didn't they do it when the North Stand was rebuilt around 2025? Now the costs are even higher and Villa have missed out on a decade of improved facilities and income.

[blunther]

2 hours ago, NeilS said:

Yes I think we could easily go ahead and just start to build the new stand. I do think the club are very aware of the transport issue getting worse as a result. Therefore I reckon we are just holding fire on announcing a start date to keep the pressure on the council to agree to stump up funding on their part for the station which will ease match day traffic and improve the links into the area. That is why we saw the article I posted yesterday where Cllr Lee Marsham and Cllr John Cotton are highlighting the financial benefits of the outlay to the wider area if we win the bid for the Euros. A clear message of £30m outlay now could bring over £100m to the local economy in the near future.

Not sure improving the station will help transport issues that much, unless there are extra trains and I thought the bottleneck with that was New Street?

[AvfcRigo82]

16 hours ago, blobbyrob said:

I'm sure I saw something along the lines of it being delayed because of inflation being so high this year. Building materials, machinery, workforce etc costing way more than was expected so waiting for the expected drop in inflation before making a start.

Not sure where I saw that, might have been on here somewhere.

I'm sure "the Fernando Torres of finance" would have had all that under control before he departed.

[JAMAICAN-VILLAN]

15 hours ago, villa89 said:

A drop in inflation won't make anything cheaper. It will just mean things won't be increasing in price as fast. Seems odd to wait if that's the case, it saves you money getting a tender out and confirmed now because in a year or two the cost would be even higher.

I think that was just from talk on here to be fair.

[NeilS]

41 minutes ago, blunther said:

Not sure improving the station will help transport issues that much, unless there are extra trains and I thought the bottleneck with that was New Street?

I am not sure to be honest. I just recall it being mentioned from the results of the fan questionnaire that there were issues with the station and it being dangerous to catch a train out after the match due to crowding. The train won't help everyone, but every little bit that can be improved will hopefully have a knock on effect.

[brommy]

1 hour ago, thabucks said:

Anyone  know if there’s a chance that they could tweak the design to add an extra couple of thousand seats or would that need a whole new planning application. Could they raise the roof a few metres or tweak the flanks? The new Anfield Road stand is a similar design and will seat circa 16k… 

I don't imagine the club will significantly change the designs to accommodate a couple of thousand extra seats. The next phase exactly doubles the current North Stand capacity of 6537 to 13074 with another 636 added to the Trinity and 235 added to the D.E. via the wraparound of the lower tiers. I guess where the new North Stands ends and the Trinity or D.E. begins on the lower tiers is dictated by which stand the seats are accessed from.

If you count all the new seats as added capacity of the new North Stand work, it's capacity is 13945. Villa made a decision to keep some of the existing character of Villa Park by not doing a complete wraparound design and not enclosing the upper tier connections to the Trinity and D.E.. This has probably reduced the feasible capacity by a couple of thousand.

Cons -

Reduced potential income (assuming the success of the team means we fill those couple of thousand seats above the proposed 50k.

Pros -

Lower construction cost;

Maintains more of the Villa Park identify;

No awkward looking angles as the profile of the new North meets the differing profiles of the upper Trinity and D.E. stands (this is unavoidable for the lower wraparound);

Slightly lower transport access concerns.

[blunther]

2 hours ago, NeilS said:

I am not sure to be honest. I just recall it being mentioned from the results of the fan questionnaire that there were issues with the station and it being dangerous to catch a train out after the match due to crowding. The train won't help everyone, but every little bit that can be improved will hopefully have a knock on effect.

This is my worry with the increase. The difference getting out between the old days of 35k and 42k is massive. It's like 40k is the threshold at which the transport network just breaks down. 50k+ could be miserable. While a bigger station gives more room to queue, unless we can get extra trains put on it's not going to help much, and I think the train thing is well beyond AVFC or BCC to fix.

Personally I think NSWE need to take a leaf from Xia's book and build a massive rollercoaster into town as an alternative public transit option.

Edited June 15, 2023 by blunther

[sidcow]

24 minutes ago, blunther said:

This is my worry with the increase. The difference getting out between the old days of 35k and 42k is massive. It's like 40k is the threshold at which the transport network just breaks down. 50k+ could be miserable. While a bigger station gives more room to queue, unless we can get extra trains put on it's not going to help much, and I think the train thing is well beyond AVFC or BCC to fix.

Personally I think NSWE need to take a leaf from Xia's book and build a massive rollercoaster into town as an alternative public transit option.

Villa Park regularly had crowds of 50,000 in the 70's and 80's 

I don't understand why its seen as such a massive problem. 

Far more people relying on Public Transport in those days too. 

[MrBlack]

29 minutes ago, sidcow said:

Villa Park regularly had crowds of 50,000 in the 70's and 80's 

I don't understand why its seen as such a massive problem. 

Far more people relying on Public Transport in those days too. 

It was probably far more regular in those days. Probably also had more pubs in the area to go to after.

55 minutes ago, blunther said:

This is my worry with the increase. The difference getting out between the old days of 35k and 42k is massive. It's like 40k is the threshold at which the transport network just breaks down. 50k+ could be miserable. While a bigger station gives more room to queue, unless we can get extra trains put on it's not going to help much, and I think the train thing is well beyond AVFC or BCC to fix.

Personally I think NSWE need to take a leaf from Xia's book and build a massive rollercoaster into town as an alternative public transit option.

This will be why they're putting in Vila Live. Along with the increased income. 

For the 3pm homes games (what are they?), they'll show the afternoon game on TV's there you'd imagine.  Stagger the departue times.

For the other games they'll have other events on in there to attract people from heading straight home. 

The combined effect on the immediate post match public transport rush might actually reduce. 

Edited June 15, 2023 by MrBlack

[blunther]

3 hours ago, sidcow said:

Villa Park regularly had crowds of 50,000 in the 70's and 80's 

I don't understand why its seen as such a massive problem. 

Far more people relying on Public Transport in those days too. 

Probably a lot more local foot traffic back in the day, and more people using buses as roads weren't completely congested, as well as local pubs people would head to before/after. Seems demographic changes as well as costs of running a pub have put paid to local pub trade, 20 days a year isn't enough to sustain a boozer when a lot of the locals don't drink. 

[The_Rev]

7 hours ago, blunther said:

Not sure improving the station will help transport issues that much, unless there are extra trains and I thought the bottleneck with that was New Street?

I’m not sure what the plans for Witton station are, but I’m in the industry so I have a certain interest in how things can be done.  You could absolutely improve access to the station and reduce bottlenecks. Longer platforms would be the obvious move, extend them towards Aston and have a new entrance/exit there so the flow through the station is more efficient. If you had a tunnel beneath the tracks then access to the stadium from the Aston bound platform would be miles better and you could go over the river towards the Academy too.  Plenty of room to put people, reduce dangerous overcrowding and just be more efficient with what capacity the railway can currently offer. 

[OutByEaster?]

9 hours ago, thabucks said:

Anyone  know if there’s a chance that they could tweak the design to add an extra couple of thousand seats or would that need a whole new planning application. Could they raise the roof a few metres or tweak the flanks? The new Anfield Road stand is a similar design and will seat circa 16k… 

I think it's very, very unlikely - the roof of this stand is designed almost entirely with the row of houses down the side of the North Stand Car Park in mind - it's lighter and 'floaty' because of those houses and their access to natural light - anything that made that worse would probably get blocked on planning permission.

9 hours ago, Captain_Townsend said:

I would ne inclined to just get a new stand up and then figure out the Witton Lane.

The Witton Lane will be incredibly hard to redevelop - the stand at is it was reduced in size from its original specification to it's current state because of the housing behind it. In order to redevelop it in a way that would be meaningfully beneficial, you'd be looking at buying up a hundred houses, possibly a school, getting rid of a park and re-routing a road - the chances of getting that through planning permission without the addition of an absolutely huge amount of cash for BCC is next to zero - the work involved in getting the space to rebuild the Doug Ellis Stand would be enormously expensive - nine figures of expensive.

 

 

[sidcow]

We could add an extra 10,000 seats with a rebuild of Witton Lane much cheaper than moving. Just need to buy a row of houses and move the road back EXACTLY like we did when the current stand was extended. 

I'm sure the Holte End could so be rebuilt bigger and Trinity Road extended cheaper than moving too. 

We would definitely need a totally different transport strategy 

Probably a couple of Tram lines near the ground to get access down Lichfield Rd and the A34. 

[The Fun Factory]

Obviously things are going on behind the scenes. As far as I am aware the club could start the job now, the station rebuild was not a pre-condition of the planning application though it was discussed. Villa are pushing for this, using the Perry Barr for the commonwealths as a precedent.  I think when the UK and Ireland get the 2028 Euro bid in September that will get the gears moving. It would be dreadful PR for BCC if dragging their heels on the station that Villa Park got dropped as a host city.

Witton station improvements are an important part of the redevelopment but you would think there could be some other options. Better traffic management,  active travel measures, the introduction of some park and ride sites further away, putting on services to the city centre like what they do for every cricket test match at Edgbaston. I just hope this doesn't completely stall this project.

[The Fun Factory]

19 hours ago, sidcow said:

Villa Park regularly had crowds of 50,000 in the 70's and 80's 

I don't understand why its seen as such a massive problem. 

Far more people relying on Public Transport in those days too. 

Actually I think the last time a Villa home game had an attendance over 50,000 was verus Blues back in September 1976. The current North Stand put capacity down to 48,000, which dropped to around 39k in the 90s before the current trinity has put as at 42.5 for the last 20 years.

[sidcow]

1 hour ago, The Fun Factory said:

Actually I think the last time a Villa home game had an attendance over 50,000 was verus Blues back in September 1976. The current North Stand put capacity down to 48,000, which dropped to around 39k in the 90s before the current trinity has put as at 42.5 for the last 20 years.

I meant 48,000 which was the capacity at that time. I'm sure the extra 2,000 wouldn't break anything. 

[Demitri_C]

14 hours ago, Tayls said:

So if we ever did want to expand properly again, we’d have to move? By properly I mean a good 10/15k extra seats… obviously many years away, but, that’s where it is headed isn’t it? 

Lets see if we can sell out 51k week in week out before we think of further expansion

[AvonVillain]

On 15/06/2023 at 11:30, Captain_Townsend said:

Badly phrased!

What I meant was switching the tunnel and dressing rooms and tweaking our newest stand wouldn't be my priority!

A joke mate as you probably guessed. I think it shows an holistic approach. Could the tunnel be better placed? Probably, yes.

[VillaJ100]

Bloody hell if they're going to have more concerts at VP they need to sort the travel situation. Absolutely paralyzed all the roads all the way up to Perry Barr on Tuesday and today. Took 2 hours on bus and still not home

[DevonIsAPlaceOnEarth]

31 minutes ago, VillaJ100 said:

Bloody hell if they're going to have more concerts at VP they need to sort the travel situation. Absolutely paralyzed all the roads all the way up to Perry Barr on Tuesday and today. Took 2 hours on bus and still not home

I still find it absolutely mad that the transport situation is what it is. If it were TFL it would have been sorted by now. Terrible.