Stadium Expansion - Bushey Hall

I don’t think that’s the plan. I think the hospital redevelopment is happening on an adjacent site, vacating some of the space immediately behind the GT stand. There’s a good graphic in this article: http://stadiumdb.com/news/2021/04/england_watford_mayor_opts_for_vicarage_road_expansion

 

Blimey, apologies. Tried to find where I thought I saw the hospital move but clearly I've made it up. Old age...

 

If the only land available is behind the GT stand, then I’d imagine the pitch would have to be rotated through 90 degrees to gain most benefit.

 

Seems like a lot of work for not that much benefit, no? We still wouldn't be able to do too much with the Rookery (given the flats) or the Elton John stand (given the Occupation Road light restrictions etc) and maybe we could extend the Vic Road end slightly lengthways, but the bulk of the project would be enlarging the GT which we could do without rotating the pitch at all anyway.

Watford Council seem pretty desperate for the club to stay put. We should turn round to them and tell them to make it worth a while via cash/other benefits (e.g. the land the hospital is vacating for free/very cheap) and/or more flexbility in the planning process. A much bigger GT stand with better facilities, particularly for hospitality and food etc and 5000 extra seats, and a slight redevelopment of the EJ stand to add some corporate hospitality is pretty much all we need.

 

Who owns that land?

 

No idea. Would have thought the NHS trust. But you’d imagine the Council would have some pull either way. I wonder if the club’s support for Watford General staff wasn’t purely altruistic...

 

The Trust owns the land, but if they dispose of assets for non NHS use, (because of their financial status), they would have to give the money back to a central NHS pot that finances capital projects across all of the NHS inEngland.

So in short the sale of operational land would benefit the NHS but not the West Herts Trust itself. It would not be discounted for the football stadium.

 

https://theathletic.com/2551670/202...velop-vicarage-road-promotion-premier-league/

 

That’s an interesting development. Not entirely surprising.

It reads though that the club would commit to spending £36-40m over the 4 years in expanding the SEJ and GT stands, but only for the immediate future.

Looking at how much space could be made available to Watford once the hospital development has completed is quite substantial. Maybe they could do the 90 degree switch after all, but that would mean a complete stadium rebuild.

I think they will go with expanding the SEJ stand, as that’s the easiest thing to do. Then once the hospital is done, will take down the GT stand and rebuild it. They may even have enough room for a fan zone in front of the GT stand.

If they decide to stay at VR, it would make sense to start work on the SEJ stand immediately. To take advantage of the summer and the fact stadiums are without fans right now. Even next season if fans are allowed back in, I suspect it will be reduced to 25% capacity.

 

An expected counter proposal to the developers option at Bushey Hall. Ultimately as I live locally I can’t see downsides of rebuilding Vicarage road, or moving to a new stadium at Aldenham Road. I think either route forward will benefit the supporters and long term financial and sporting security of the club.

if the Bushey Hall proposal has opened doors and options that previously were difficult at Vicarage Road. Or indeed options to rebuild make discussions on the deal to move more fruitful, then it can only be to the clubs advantage.

The Athletic of course could be spot on, totally wrong or has wrongly analysed discussions. What for example if the information is that Watford are accelerating plans for a 30,000 stadium and are discussing options for Vicarage Road. But those are options to redevelop Vicarage Road not as a stadium, but other uses. The hospital have a plan to rebuild all health services buildings and locate them at the rear of its site. Freeing up land fronting Vicarage road for commercial redevelopment. That land becomes more valuable if it becomes part of a bigger scheme to develop not just the released hospital estate, but the football stadium too. So the hospital, council and their development partner Keir would of course want to discuss how realistic it is that the footprint of the stadium is in play. It would significantly change the options for the land next door, and how you redevelop that land.

First step is to see if the owners of Bushey Hall get their land zoned for business use. Then they need to get WFC on board. Next 18 months will be interesting.

 

£30m to add 5000 capacity to the GT Stand sounds like lunacy on the face of it.

 

It would be lunacy. At that cost they would need £6000 out of every seat to break even.

 

Not really. It's not a vanity project. The roof needs replacing. It's reached the end of life. That on its own would dictate major work on the stand. It's not a question of knocking down a stand to add 5,000 seats, it's a question of having to for health and safety reasons.

 

I thought that this was a major non-starter due to the lack of access notably Elstree Hill (very unlikely due to the residential area) and Aldenham Road (unless draining the reservoir is part of the plans - which the developers who own the 'res' want to do as the dam built by Napoleonic POWs is 'unstable').

I thought Dowden's announcement was money for a re-furb of the hospital and not a major re-build (which the site desperately needs).

Something I do find interesting is the both Aldenham Rd (in reality Elstree) and Bushey Hall are Hertsmere BC whereas the Vic is Watford BC - could a bidding was break out*?

EDIT: And seeing HBC is Tory and WBC isn't...

 

Yup.

That kind of money could buy you 2.5 Isaac Successes.

 

Fair enough. That's why I said 'on the face of it'. If there are other reasons then it might make more sense. Though given how they managed to limp the East Stand on for probably 20 years past its sell-by date I wonder how pressing the roof issue is.

 

Aldenham Road - i meant Bushey Hall Golf Club - I just gave it local name as its the road that links A41 by Costco to Oxhey at Bushey station.

The refurb of the hospital is a completely new building on the existing surface car park. demolition of the 60 years Maternity block and all the legacy Shroddells buildings.

 

With hindsight I'm sure the NHS realises demand amongst 60 year olds for maternity care was always never likely to be high. Makes sense to be rid of it.

 

But if it's reduced capacity, then we can't just close a stand and squeeze the fans in less space.

But I suppose you're only losibg 1000 instead of 4000 fans

 

You can easily do just that. What I've heard, not confirmed yet I don't think, fans are likely to be allowed back into stadiums next season, but the the capacity will be reduced to 25%. So you'll have plenty of space even if one stand is being developed. It's the perfect time to do this type of work.

 

Where have you read that?

I'm no engineer, but it was only built 35 years ago from steel and concrete and as such will be pretty heavy but it's not exactly Victorian engineering.

 

But unless AL has been completely misled, it's not going to happen during next season. And surely even if capacity is restricted to 25% because of Covid that's not going to be the case 2-3 seasons down the line.

 

I've not read it anywhere. I was told it by someone very close to the project that it needs doing. I mentioned this in post #880. The £30m quote mentioned by The Athletic is bang on what I was told, so I'm pretty sure I know where they got this story from. The club are weighing up whether to move to Bushey or stay at VR. Right now both things are possible. I suspect we'll stay at VR and develop the site. The BHGC plan will have played out quite nicely for the club as a negotiating tool. The WBC will be far more amenable if they know Watford have a viable option to move to. Watford FC are in a very strong position right now.

 

It depends on what they decide on doing. If it's Bushey, then nothing will be done to VR of course, but if they decide to stay, then I'd be surprised if they didn't start making plans on the SEJ stand next season. That would seem to be the next logical step to me.

 

If land is freed up behind the GT, presumably the whole ground could be shifted 'west' - I believe the SEJ is fairly modular - If it was to 'come forward' 15m then I imagine it could also go up a similar amount without impinging on the daylight of Occupation Road residents. In the meantime you could lose a chunk of the lower GT until the whole stand was redeveloped and have a net seat gain because it is much shallower and there are a load of seats below acceptable sightlines at the Vic end.

OTOH it probably wouldn't be great for sightlines from the UGT to the near side of the pitch.

 

Yep it has only taken 59 years for them to realise that. Does explain the naming of the birthing suites, after Charlie Chaplin and Steve Martin.

 

The question of a major plan that involves realigning the pitch is. Where do we play our home matches in the interim? Tottenham went to Wembley so I suppose Milton Keynes is an option.

 

Certainly makes sense. I think potentially they could extend the SEJ regardless of the Bushey decision - if you're right about the GT Stand then that's going to be the decider on whether we stay or go.

 

I think Spurs did something similar. It would make sense to shift the stadium over and rebuild or rotate 90 degrees, but the cost of doing something like that would be massive and I expect prohibitive. It would give you plenty of space all around the stadium, but what would be overall benefit be, compared to the cost of doing it? Yes, a nice modern stadium with more capacity, but there's not a lot wrong with the current one, that would justify a complete bulldoze of the current site, then a rebuild. You're better off moving to Bushey if you wanted to build a new stadium. That way you would save on demolition costs, and also avoid the hassle and expenditure of relocating to another stadium while work is being undertaken.

I think they'll settle on expanding the SEJ stand in phase one, then rebuilding the GT stand in phase two. I think that was the original plan anyway before the Bushey Hall site was proposed. I think the BHGC plan will be used as a lever to entice the WBC to see things Watford's way.

 

I think that if Brentford don't go up we should just make a cheeky offer for their new stadium.

Get them to throw in Toney as well.

 

What, as caretaker?

 

The council and hospital are in a development partnership with Kier. They own land, kier redevelops it and they all share the profits. In the councils case, that includes non monetary benefits like getting some social housing. For the hospital it includes getting the access road and multi storey car park.

Rebuilding the stadium would be outside that development vehicle. The council as planning authority is constrained by law. They do own some land Watford FC use, like the car park off of occupation road. And presumably they, among others, own occupation road itself. It’s not adopted highway AFAIK. That car park is leased to the football club, but will be needed for the residential redevelopment of the allotment site. The council want the stadium to stay, but they can’t make it happen, but they can help around the edges. For example on managing off street car parking. Particularly for VIP guests to the stadium and those with specific parking needs.

The real partner to facilitate a rebuild of vicarage road would be the hospital. It’s their land and operational estate that would be impacted. The hospital can make it happen, but what’s in it for them? Will they get more money and less operational disruption if the stadium expands in to their footprint.

For the promoters of Bushey Golf course. They want the football club as anchor for the indoor arena/exhibition hall and the hotel. It also levers in more transport capacity. If you have a 30,000 stadium sustainable transport plan for 25 days a year, the planners cant argue that a 6,000 seat arena will create transport problems for its estimated 180 days of events.

 

Very important point here. The council and mayor can talk a good game but when it comes to it if they make a decision that doesn't conform to planning law, or is tainted by looking like they're in the club's pocket, it'd be quashed by the High Court.

 

Why would there be any restrictions on crowd numbers next season if all social distancing restrictions are due to be lifted in June?

 

The SEJ stand redevelopment/extension seems like a no brainer, regardless of Bushey Hall. But you’d imagine that it’s either the GT stand or a new stadium, not both; even if the roof requires repair, the club isn’t making a £40m investment in VR to then sell the ground in 10-15 years and move to Bushey.