The Corporate move to the East Stand well under way. Plus the away fans have been shuffled into the South section of the stand so it fair to assume its days are numbered when we get back into the Premiership. Now I agree that all spending should be on squad before squalor, but we all know that the the West Stand is in need of more than a lick of paint and I felt like staring a non playing thread. What idea's would you take from other Stadiums? How should the West Stand be redeveloped: Leave the old stand as a new bottom tier? Knock it down and start again? 1,2,3 Tiered? Large screen? Disabled access? Escalators like Wembley?
New roof, maybe some new stuff in the concourse, and something done to fill in the Southwest Corner would suit me fine. The facade is legendary and needs to be preserved, and I'm quite proud about a stand looking traditional, as long as it's not falling into disrepair.
If any redevelopment of the west stand were to happen upon return to the Premier League, I guarantee there'd be a significant capacity increase and the aim would be to mirror the east stand. I can't imagine preserving the facade would be practical, as a change to a cantilever would be required simply to reduce the number of restricted view seats.
A mirror image of East stand here too. I remember reading somewhere that would increase capacity to well over 50k. I'm puzzled though, even getting back to the premiership, how often would we fill that? We're averaging about 23k at the moment and I just can't see why we'd ever need a larger capacity than 40k as at present
We won't pack the stadium until we start to see some serious investment on the playing staff to reflect the price of the tickets. I don't see that happening any time soon even if we get promoted.
