Aston Villa Fan Consultation Group Meeting on North Stand Expansion
As mentioned on MOMS social media in the last couple of days there was a special Aston Villa Fan Consultation Group meeting held at Villa Park on Monday June 27th regarding the latest stage of the North Stand development. They’ll be more insightful and detailed commentary to come on MOMS on both the site and podcast, but below is the club’s sanctioned notes of the meeting.
FCG Details
Club Officials present
Nicola Ibbotson – Chief Commercial Officer
Paul Tyrrell – Chief Corporate Affairs Officer
Tommy Jordan – Communications Director
Lee Preece – Supporter Liaison Manager
Also attending
James Lamb – Villa’s Head of Estates Development
Sarah Williams – Associate Principal at Grimshaw Global Architects.
Fan Representatives present:
Joanne McKibbens Aston Villa Disabled Supporters Association
David Michael My Old Man Said
Scott Jones Villa Talk
Ian Stokes Vital Villa
John Gillett Lions Clubs
Steve Gough Aston Villa Independent Supporters Clubs
Sarah Breslin Villa & Proud
Mo Razzaq Aston Villa Supporters Trust
Guri Nandra Punjabi Villans
North Stand Plans Presentation and Discussion
James and Sarah presented to FCG details of the work that has been carried out by the dedicated design team to redevelop Villa Park – especially North and Trinity stands – together with the masterplan containing the significant upgrades of our facilities outside the stadium and future phases of redeveloping the stadium.
Building a new North and significantly upgrading Trinity are in the first phase of the club’s planned redevelopment plan which also includes construction of Villa Live – a multi-use facility which will act as a fan zone on match day and provide opportunities to stage leisure and community events on non-match days.
A two-hour discussion took place in which FCG were able to ask numerous questions of the senior design team members prior to the club beginning public consultation. The subject of existing transport difficulties was debated with club officials stressing that significant improvements to the transport network around Villa Park were required to meet the increasing demand a 50,000 plus stadium would create.
Club staff said they were working well with representatives from Birmingham City Council, West Midlands Railway, Network Rail and Transport for West Midlands to develop an effective and integrated transport plan.
FCG members were asked by the club to go back to their own representative groups and encourage both collective feedback from their associations and also responses from individual supporters. FCG members were asked to publish their own reports of the meeting.
AOB
Other items raised by FCG included Castore Training Kit, time and date of Bournemouth away sale (time of sale potentially compromising fans in Australia for the pre-season tour) and a specific issue with the classification of seats as restricted views.
What did they say about Castore?