Gazette: South East Corner Hit By Delays

The Gazette are today running a story claiming that the South East corner at Bloomfield Road won’t now be ready until at least Christmas after being hit by delays.

The paper does not ascertain why the project has been delayed – although I’m sure we can all take an educated guess! – but it does state the southern end of the East end will continue to be out of action whilst the work on the corner is completed.

This means that the capacity of Bloomfield Road will be limited to around 13,500 for the foreseeable future, with around 2,500 seats in the East stand being offline due to health and safety issues relating to the work in the South East corner.

With around 10,000 season ticket holders at the club this season and 2,000 seats given up for away supports on the north side of the East, there will only be around 1,500 tickets available for sale on a match to match basis to non-season ticket holders.

Once the work is finally completed, it will raise the capacity of the ground to around 16,500, as well as finally allowing the hotel in the South stand to open because the neccessary fire exits will be within the South East corner (the skeptics amongst us may suggest that the need for fire exits is the only reason the corner is being built!).

The paper has also revealed in the past few days that the club are facing legal action over a 10 foot high fence they have erected around their Squires Gate training ground without getting the relevant planning permission.

Needless to say that ‘Pool chairman Karl Oyston has refused to comment on both stories!