Stadium Expansion

[Peter Kay - Top of the To]

The questionnaire looks interesting - even dealing with car parking.

Worryingly assuming no more private car parking space

How would you suggest that access to the ground could be improved, assuming no more private car parking space were made available?
If you live / work nearby, do you ever experience problems with overspill visitor parking (for example during match days)? If so, what form do the problems take?

http://www.readingfc.premiumtv.co.uk/st ... 866,00.doc

You can get yourself a copy of the consultation summary report too!

I hear on pretty good authority that a railway station is awaiting approval at Green Park which would serve both the Madejski and the Business Park. Not sure how quickly it would be operational, but you would hope that this would take some of the new traffic. That said parking has to be improved, because its not even adequate at the moment. Maybe an expansion of park and ride schemes might help too. Not sure how many exist for areas outside of Reading like Newbury, Thatcham, Wokingham etc.

[STAR Liaison]

The questionnaire looks interesting - even dealing with car parking.

Worryingly assuming no more private car parking space

How would you suggest that access to the ground could be improved, assuming no more private car parking space were made available?
If you live / work nearby, do you ever experience problems with overspill visitor parking (for example during match days)? If so, what form do the problems take?

http://www.readingfc.premiumtv.co.uk/st ... 866,00.doc

You can get yourself a copy of the consultation summary report too!

I hear on pretty good authority that a railway station is awaiting approval at Green Park which would serve both the Madejski and the Business Park. Not sure how quickly it would be operational, but you would hope that this would take some of the new traffic. That said parking has to be improved, because its not even adequate at the moment. Maybe an expansion of park and ride schemes might help too. Not sure how many exist for areas outside of Reading like Newbury, Thatcham, Wokingham etc.

It was announced earlier in the year that the railway station will be ready for November 2008 IIRC

[Big Ern]

Does anyone know whether

a) How long it will take to expand the stadium and

b) will any of the stands be closed whilst they do this

a) Not too long. When the stadium was built, they spent alot of preparing the ground, and this involved doing the pile driving in anticipation of future expansion.

b) I doubt that this will happen, although it may mean certain seats have no cover from the elements while they are doing the new roof.

[Alan Partridge]

Very exciting and it looks fantastic. The only issue really is the access and parking, if the club can find a way of making that easier then it would be superb. However at the minute it's a nightmare with 23,000 so God knows what it would be like with another 15,000!!!

On a seperate note I've always liked the idea of another train station on the Green Park site however from the design proposals of it, it seems miles away from the stadium!!

There are loads of car parks around the stadium problem is they are never open!! Get them open! Also Green Park as well especially at weekends when there is nothing going on there.

[Bring back the South bank]

I presume they'll be filling the corners in?

[Big Ern]

I presume they'll be filling the corners in?

I doubt they would do that at this stage. With the plans in place the expected capacity would be around 38K and that would be sufficient for the forseable future. There is also the cost implication as well as the club have quoted it will cost £1000 per new seat added. This doens't rule out it be done in the future if the stadium requires further expansion.

[Winchester Royal]

Is it just me, or does that look nothing like the Madejski?

Looks very interesting, but nothing like what I would have imagined.

[SpaceCruiser]

I presume they'll be filling the corners in?

Aren't they already filled in, you moron.

[Bring back the South bank]

I presume they'll be filling the corners in?

I doubt they would do that at this stage. With the plans in place the expected capacity would be around 38K and that would be sufficient for the forseable future. There is also the cost implication as well as the club have quoted it will cost £1000 per new seat added. This doens't rule out it be done in the future if the stadium requires further expansion.

IMO it would lok better for now if they didn't, would give the ground a more unique feel as apposed to the usual new bowl grounds you get nowadays.

[Stranded]

I presume they'll be filling the corners in?

Aren't they already filled in, you moron.

Look at the drawings Spacey, they show open corners after the extension.

[Big Ern]

I presume they'll be filling the corners in?

I doubt they would do that at this stage. With the plans in place the expected capacity would be around 38K and that would be sufficient for the forseable future. There is also the cost implication as well as the club have quoted it will cost £1000 per new seat added. This doens't rule out it be done in the future if the stadium requires further expansion.

IMO it would lok better for now if they didn't, would give the ground a more unique feel as apposed to the usual new bowl grounds you get nowadays.

You could argue that the current plans look a bit like the Reebok or the Emirates.

Not too bothered myself as I think is is quite hard to design something unique that is also cost effective.

[Winchester Royal]

But there again they don't show the hotel, and the West Stand looks tiny.
Could end up like anything.

[RoyalBlue]

Another money making scheme dreamt up by RFC - this time combining football stadium with roller-coaster ride!

I presume they'll be filling the corners in?

Aren't they already filled in, you moron.

Spacey's eloquent debating skills come to the fore again!

[Big Ern]

From the designs, it doesn't appear they will be adding anymore executive boxes. Suprised at this considering the amount of revenue they generate.

[earley_royals]

Looks awesome.

[Dirk Gently]

From the designs, it doesn't appear they will be adding anymore executive boxes. Suprised at this considering the amount of revenue they generate.

The problem would be providing services (catering, bars, meet & greet areas etc) to them - the only way this can be done is through the conference centre and West stand - so unless there's a long walkway linking all stands this couldn't easily be done.

[anR]

So what is this design capacity? 38K? What happens when they do a further expansion? They fill in the corners for a similar price as this initial expansion, with the difference of only giving us a couple of thousand more people in it?

[Bring back the South bank]

I doubt they would do that at this stage. With the plans in place the expected capacity would be around 38K and that would be sufficient for the forseable future. There is also the cost implication as well as the club have quoted it will cost £1000 per new seat added. This doens't rule out it be done in the future if the stadium requires further expansion.

IMO it would lok better for now if they didn't, would give the ground a more unique feel as apposed to the usual new bowl grounds you get nowadays.

You could argue that the current plans look a bit like the Reebok or the Emirates.

Not too bothered myself as I think is is quite hard to design something unique that is also cost effective.

Suppose but the Reebok is double tiered all the way round, ALSO I imagine we'd just have a gap between the stands instead of a kind of wall like Bolton have

And FAO Spacey...you thick mong

[Dirk Gently]

So what is this design capacity? 38K? What happens when they do a further expansion? They fill in the corners for a similar price as this initial expansion, with the difference of only giving us a couple of thousand more people in it?

The original talk was of doing the expansion in stages - looks like stage 1 is much bigger than anyone expected.

[SpaceCruiser]

I presume they'll be filling the corners in?

Aren't they already filled in, you moron.

Look at the drawings Spacey, they show open corners after the extension.

So they'll move back the existing stands then? Surely this is only an artist's impression, doesn't mean that there will actually be open corners!