Safe Standing at Valley Parade

If rails were erected, which would be necessary for standing, then I anticipate that they would be about 60 mm wide.

What I have suggested before, about the current rows being to narrow, would have to be addressed.

The current concrete would have to be ripped up. Deeper and taller rows would then have to be constructed. I think that in the lower blocks of the Main Stand/Kop, at least three rows would be lost.

If the seats were wider, then that would also have implications for the number of seats in a row, which are likely to have to be reduced.

Perhaps someone who knows more precisely the dimensions necessary and can compare them with the current configuration and dimensions could comment.

 

Looking at the measurements then the side view does not specify the minimum depth of the actual row. However having measured it, then it appears to be 550mm (or twenty one and a half inches). If I remember I will take a tape measure and see how deep my current row is, which is located in the lower half of the JCT Main Stand.

I am fairly sure that the current seats are far narrower than 500mm.

 

Being a pauper in the lower stand, then I guess ours will be about 450 mm.

In my block there appear to be 28 seats per row. So 28X450 = 12,600 then divide 12,600 by the new standing seats @ 500 mm = 25.2 So three seats about 3 lost per row.

That equates to about 11% reduction. Add onto that a loss in rows, so somewhere over 15% reduction if not more.

So in Block B of the Kop Lower good bye to your seat if your are in 40-42. Block C would lose 67-69. Block D 94-96, Block E 121-123, Block F 146-147 and Block A (which is not a standard pattern) seats 12.

I think that the whole Rows of V & W may go and potentially EE and above.

This is my estimate rather than any hard and fast result of Safe Standing ‘remodelling.

It is not a simple job of ‘putting’ rails in front of the seats as suggested by some!

 

Given that we have threads about:-

• Players budgets,
• Getting a quality manager,
• Redevelopment of the whole pitch (rather than a relaying of the turf),
• Developing the training facilities,
• The ticketing system,
• The PR/Tannoy system,
• The toilets
• The Food
• Cheap Replica Kit

All the above have significant costs attached to them!!

Then really where is the club going to get the (guesstimates a figure) £50 per seat, which would be the cost of removing the existing seats, ripping up the concrete, relaying new concrete and installing the seats?

 

If the seats are ‘locked’ into position, then they would require an area in front of the seat, so that someone passing the space in which someone is seated, could pass with relative ease. At present, if someone wants to go down the row, those sitting, stand up and the seat retracts. So I would guess a row would need a depth of at least 600mm to allow free passage if the seats are locked down. I accept that at games they would probably be locked up, but would still need the potential space.