Stadium Expansion - Bushey Hall

Hopefully this happens.

 

Yep

 

Were there any other drawings of this proposed ground or just the main one that is in the latest report? I can't remember to when we first discussed this and there are a lot of pages to scroll through.

 

It would be a spectacular modern stadium and would take us comfortably into the bracket of Premier League football club in terms of infrastructure.

The 6,000 all-seater arena would be great also. Only Wembley Arena, The O2 and The Bowl in Milton Keynes are venues for this type of thing, within a 40 mile radius.

A 5-year plan is an ambitious timescale though. I would think it could take a lot longer than that, although that's probably just the building phase once the green light has been given by HBC.

 

If the Bushey move doesn't go ahead due to local opposition, would it worth proposing a merger with Luton?

We could pool our resources together and build a new stadium halfway between the 2 towns.

 

The main thing is it hasn’t been farted out in their sleep by the Wickes kitchen design department like Southampton, Reading Derby etc. That would be the only reason I wouldn’t want to move.

 

I have looked at the proposal on the website. The nine hole golf course is phase 1 and is replaced by the hotel, stadium , park land and nature reserve. The plans look quite impressive

 

Indeed Green belt does not mean no buildings. lots of green belt is agricultural land, a lot is golf courses, schools, playing fields and even hospitals.

The Green belt is a misnomer in that it is not a circle around London. It is designed to stop the undesirable merging of settlements not just the expansion of London. So for example there’s areas within London boroughs that are green belt, and there is green belt designation of land between watford and Kings Langley. Much of the green belt in Hertsmere is designed to create breaks between existing settlements. For London, the metropolitan green belt is more like green spokes between the historic settlements, and major arteries like the A41, A5 and the railways. There is much debate that giving up green belt, will stop expansion in the countryside proper. The argument being green belt in urban areas is easier to serve with infrastructure for new build, and much of it is low grade landscape. Mind you if you live next to a scruffy field that has the occassional car boot sale, you would probably be reluctant to see it turn into a housing estate.

 

35k would not be enough for the champions league games post covid. 60k should do it.

 

Based on the fans attire, it seems we will be playing in beige and brown when the stadium is completed.

 

Maybe they could design the stadium with space to expand? Hopefully the club can provide nice yellow flags for each home game too!

 

Isn't there a 'big' step up in emergency service access requirements and security arrangements above 33k?

 

Why isn't the club behind this on an official basis. This Veladail outfit say WFC endorse the plans and yet only a "club source" is quoted in the WO-last year.

£250m of construction costs !!-Brightons new ground is in the books at £150m cost-similar capacity. Ok naming rights and sale of Vicarage Rd would help but who would be able to fund this given the financial impact of relegation. Both Brentford and BHA have billionaire owners who have put in £100m and £250m respectively to fund new grounds and were both very open about their plans and how they would fund it-they also got local council support for their ideas early doors.

Nice to have dreams I guess but back in the real world.....

 

A bit of a scruffy map, but this is what the green belt looks like in our part of the world. Hitchin and Letchworth are to the top right and High Wycombe bottom left. Hemel and St Albans in the centre.

 

For all we know, there could be an investor/benefactor lined up and ready to go. Nothing to do but wait for more details, if they ever arrive and this isn't nonsense.

The reality is that wanting to progress the club and wanting to stay at the Vic just aren't compatible visions long term. There's just no space to redevelop the Vic and for all that being in the community is great from one perspective, stadium access on match day is poor. If the club aspires to grow then it's going to inevitably mean a new stadium at some point.

Like was mentioned above, as long as it isn't some soulless identikit stadium slapped with a sponsor's name, I'm onboard. A new stadium should be something appropriate, like "The Nest" or "The [club legend] Stadium" ("Graham Taylor", "Elton John", "Taylor-John", etc.). I really don't want to see our stadium called something ridiculous and corporate like the "Payday Loans Stadium". That would be so disappointing.

 

I'm very much against this. I haven't been to a new football stadium that I have enjoyed, except maybe Brighton. They're all **** IMO. Personally even preferred going to the old white hart lane.

 

This made me throw up my lunch.

 

The away fans would refer to the stadium as The Hornets' Nest and would quake in fear at the thought of playing Infront of 33k vegetable-waving madmen on a mild Saturday afternoon.

 

Perhaps based on the cantilever tool box design?

 

No thank you. Wouldn't want to move into a soulless modern day bowl. More than happy with our town centre stadium which can have it's capacity increased to around 30k anyway for a hell of a lot less money.

 

Thanks Andrew for the clarification, the concept of the green belt has confused me for years!

Now I notice there is a large swathe of green belt area between High Barnet and Mill Hill only separated by the A5109 (which has several different names, but tends to be referred to as Totteridge Common it seems). It's almost completely rural there and if you approach that area (which is well worth a visit) from the south or west you could be forgiven for thinking you're out of London already.

 

The most significant part of this plan is the 6,000 seater arena. The promoters are pitching that as a venue for concerts, exhibitions and conferences. They point out that the only facility in the NW quadrant of London currently is Wembley Arena the old Empire Pool. They say they reckon that will generate 100-150 days of events, compared to the stadium at 25 days a year. So that’s going to be the big money spinner and the one element likely to create most impact, but also the element that creates most jobs and money to fund the transport mitigations. In fact the arena is easier to deliver without the football stadium above it. Of course the subtlety is that the stadium is a sports and leisure facility and green belt status land acceptable while an exhibition concert hall is not. Stick the arena under the stadium and you get your money spinner.

 

That's a nice size for basketball, netball, indoor hockey etc.

 

And for us when we play in the National League

 

I think the only good thing about a new stadium would be how angry Luton would get. They've been desperately after a new stadium for decades and then we just rock up and build a stadium we don't even need.

 

Yep. The questions would also be asked of opposition teams; “Yes they can beat Liverpool, but can they cut it on a pleasant Saturday afternoon in Bushey?”


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

...in front of a good-natured, shirt-sleeved Bank Holiday crowd.

 

I totally understand this and agree about modern stadiums. I love the four sides grounds and never wanted to leave ours. The problem is that despite any initial outlay, this will put us in a better position longer term, which will further our prospects longer term and give us a greater opportunity to compete at a higher level. I guess it depends what you want, it’s not not necessarily a binary choice, we can still succeed staying put, it will just be harder. Pre-pozzo when we were just a bog standard championship club I would’ve said 100% no way as it wouldn’t have made a difference anyway.

 

There must be a point where a new stadium makes sense as much as for the fact that the existing one will need upgrading and refurbishment.

While people mention Derby, Coventry, Reading, etc as clubs who moved and then lost top flight status. There are after all 8 former Premier league teams in League 1 with Hull, and Sunderland in new stadiums. For me the exemplar is Leicester . the new owners wanted to build a stadium, because they saw that as an important part of moving the club forward. Both in terms of off field and match day Revenue, and build the image of the club when attracting both supporters, players and coaches.

Personally i can only see Gino going for this if he sees a significant financial gain in doing so. So we may need a new owner/investor to get on board. Again a new stadium seems to excite the mega rich overseas investor - so it might be a goer if we regain and retain Premier League status.

 

The thing that irritates me about new stadiums (apart from bland design) is that they almost always seem to be equally difficult to get to or park at as the ones they replace. I’m struggling to think of any that are better in that regard.

 

Think they managed to build one whilst being in administration or maybe coming out of it.

We were the first team to play there.

Lost 2-0 under Lewington.

I agree clubs don't seem to do too well after building a new ground and often end up with a half empty or worse stadium.

 

There are a lot of variables though, the bigger they are the harder the fall as the bigger clubs see bigger drops in attendance relatively speaking if they go down. Plenty of big teams that haven’t built new stadiums (Forest/Wednesday/Leeds/Sunderland/Wolves etc) that have fallen from grace because they were badly run.

If you’re a big club with a new stadium to finance but are badly run, then a new stadium will just magnify your problems if it all goes wrong but it won’t necessarily be the cause.

 

Not wishing to be pedantic but it's newish.