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Alan Sendorek, the head of strategy of QPR property and QPR FC emailed all the R's fan sites today with the following. The subject has been raised quite a bit on here, so he was happy for his message to be shared here too. He'll probably be following this thread so feel free to post any feedback or on-topic questions:
Dear all
You’ve probably seen the news about West Brom having their application for safe standing rejected by the Government http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/43701400. There’s a petition which is at 25,000 signatures and growing all the time https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/207040
I’ve had a few questions about safe standing and how it might affect us if the law was changed so thought it might be worth emailing all of you.
Until the government changes the law, safe standing can’t be introduced. Terracing and safe standing are not allowed in the top two divisions by law (there are some exceptions, like if you’ve recently been recently promoted e.g. Burton, but none of them apply to us).
If the law was changed, then it would be possible to introduce safe standing at Loftus Road. However, it wouldn’t significantly increase overall capacity because our capacity is still restricted by having to meet modern ground regulations on concourse space, number of toilets, safe entry and exit etc, where we are already very tight. These regulations have changed significantly since the 1970s when we could get 35,000 into Loftus Road. Doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be a good thing to do, but it wouldn’t significantly increase capacity.
If the law was changed, then clearly it would be possible to introduce safe standing at a new stadium. But currently we don’t have definitive dates for either.
For what it’s worth, I think the political pressure for change is growing, and a large number of people signing the petition will add to that. I was at Dortmund at the weekend, where they have a 24,500 safe standing end, which appears to operate without any problems at all.
Please do get in touch if you’ve got any questions.
Regards, Alan
PS:
There is a good interview with Jon Darch (the guy behind the petition), which explains why retrofitting safe standing into existing grounds in England is unlikely to allow for much if any increase in capacity. That is particularly the case at a ground like ours where the circulation space is already too small.
“In a country where the national regulations permit it and a stadium’s exits and concourses are large enough to handle the number of people concerned, you could be looking at as many as two people per seat space (in Hannover, for instance, 5,700 fans stand in an area of 3,000 rail seats). In the UK, however, seating rows tend not to be as deep as they are in, for example, Germany and in existing UK stadia the exits and concourses will have been designed to cope with no more people than the number of seats in the stand. In retrofit situations, therefore, achieving more than one person per seat may present a challenge – albeit not insurmountable.”
But as I say, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it at Loftus Road if the law changes before we have moved to a new stadium.
Dear all
You’ve probably seen the news about West Brom having their application for safe standing rejected by the Government http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/43701400. There’s a petition which is at 25,000 signatures and growing all the time https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/207040
I’ve had a few questions about safe standing and how it might affect us if the law was changed so thought it might be worth emailing all of you.
Until the government changes the law, safe standing can’t be introduced. Terracing and safe standing are not allowed in the top two divisions by law (there are some exceptions, like if you’ve recently been recently promoted e.g. Burton, but none of them apply to us).
If the law was changed, then it would be possible to introduce safe standing at Loftus Road. However, it wouldn’t significantly increase overall capacity because our capacity is still restricted by having to meet modern ground regulations on concourse space, number of toilets, safe entry and exit etc, where we are already very tight. These regulations have changed significantly since the 1970s when we could get 35,000 into Loftus Road. Doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be a good thing to do, but it wouldn’t significantly increase capacity.
If the law was changed, then clearly it would be possible to introduce safe standing at a new stadium. But currently we don’t have definitive dates for either.
For what it’s worth, I think the political pressure for change is growing, and a large number of people signing the petition will add to that. I was at Dortmund at the weekend, where they have a 24,500 safe standing end, which appears to operate without any problems at all.
Please do get in touch if you’ve got any questions.
Regards, Alan
PS:
There is a good interview with Jon Darch (the guy behind the petition), which explains why retrofitting safe standing into existing grounds in England is unlikely to allow for much if any increase in capacity. That is particularly the case at a ground like ours where the circulation space is already too small.
“In a country where the national regulations permit it and a stadium’s exits and concourses are large enough to handle the number of people concerned, you could be looking at as many as two people per seat space (in Hannover, for instance, 5,700 fans stand in an area of 3,000 rail seats). In the UK, however, seating rows tend not to be as deep as they are in, for example, Germany and in existing UK stadia the exits and concourses will have been designed to cope with no more people than the number of seats in the stand. In retrofit situations, therefore, achieving more than one person per seat may present a challenge – albeit not insurmountable.”
But as I say, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it at Loftus Road if the law changes before we have moved to a new stadium.
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