Ground Developments

[Colburn_Claret]

An aerial view of the BL stand shows that there is about 12 - 15 foot between the back of the stand, and the pavement. That's makes a very large footprint for expansion. If they incorporated new dressing rooms and an away section in any 'Barry Kilby' Stand , it could leave the CFS to be rebuilt as a home only, safe standing area.
It would take a few years, and continued success to see it come to fruition, but I like to dream. 29-30,000 capacity is more than adequate for the Turf.

[claptrappers_union]

This was some time ago, before the pandemic and under the old board, but I spoke to an architect associated with the club, and we were chatting about the ground redevelopment. At the time, the Cricketfield Stand was on the agenda, but he didn't go into details about any firm plans, but what he did tell me is that building a new stadium would cost millions before even getting a spade out. The land that Turf Moor is on isn't worth anything; buying land nearby and getting all the planning permissions, and starting afresh would take up lots of time. It's a non-starter.

The best thing to do was to redevelop. I think the Cricketfield stand will come down soon though.

[dsr]

Huddersfield is feasible.

Preston and Blackpool are nearer than Huddersfield.

[Foshiznik]

Would be surprised if the CFS redevelopment was a single tier version of the JMc/Longside prefab to be honest.

[claptrappers_union]

Would be surprised if the CFS redevelopment was a single-tier version of the JMc/Longside prefab to be honest.

I think they will want to make it so it's usable outside of matchday for conferences and so on. Paul Flecthers Bread Bin Stand wasn't a bad concept, it just looked ridiculous but serviced the commercial avenues.

I've often wondered if they should actually extend the James Hargreaves Stand instead and do what they did at Anfield - pull the roof off, redevelop the back of it by bringing it outwards into the car park, and maybe pull down the Training Centre (or move it) for more parking and access and the put another smaller tier on top.

[Vegas Claret]

it's quite telling if you watch any of the fan tv channels from other clubs when we were in the Premier League, you would often hear "I love coming to Turf Moor, proper old skool away ground, give me this instead of the Emirates any day" or similar. Sure, it needs work but the last thing we should do is move

[Foshiznik]

I think they will want to make it so it's usable outside of matchday for conferences and so on. Paul Flecthers Bread Bin Stand wasn't a bad concept, it just looked ridiculous but serviced the commercial avenues.

I've often wondered if they should actually extend the James Hargreaves Stand instead and do what they did at Anfield - pull the roof off, redevelop the back of it by bringing it outwards into the car park, and maybe pull down the Training Centre (or move it) for more parking and access and the put another smaller tier on top.

Not sure it would have the strength to hold another tier on top to be honest. Always feels a bit prefab and cheap to me despite being the most modernised stand/s.

[claptrappers_union]

Not sure it would have the strength to hold another tier on top to be honest. Always feels a bit prefab and cheap to me despite being the most modernised stand/s.

You're probably right. The stands are 'off the shelf' types, you can tell. I think Wycombe have the same ones. Also, the mine underneath the stadium doesn't help. I believe the foundations for the new corners caused some delays.

[Clowbridge89]

Interesting…

[Vegas Claret]

Interesting…

where do you find this ?

[mybloodisclaret]

Interesting…

I remember reading this as a 14 year old and being extremely excited about it all.

[RicardoMontalban]

where do you find this ?

Think that’s the pic that was in the match day program when the first announced the redevelopment of the Longside and Bee Hole end. Obviously they scaled back quite a bit when the contractor quotes came in.

[Clowbridge89]

Found it through Google, on a Twitter account from a few years ago. I remember seeing an internal sketch as well but can’t seem to see that

[dibraidio]

The problem with extending out of the back of the Bob Lord is that you are going above the extension that was done relatively recently. There is no space for a decent sized concourse and there's no space for access and turnstiles.

This was discussed on here not long ago. Adding a couple of rows on the the front of the Bob Lord and replacing the wooden seats could give us 500 to 1000 extra seats but we'd not have the concourse to accommodate those fans.

Rail seats in the CFS would cause the same problem. Having said that, it might be possible to add facilities behind the Jimmy Mac or the North stand to allow for additional capacity with rail seats in the lower tiers.

Building new stands is not economically viable unless there is significant additional commercial revenue to be gained. Building a single tier stand is never going to happen. It takes at least a generation to get the money back through ticket sales alone. ALK just aren't going to go down that route.

[Leon_C]

Not sure it would have the strength to hold another tier on top to be honest. Always feels a bit prefab and cheap to me despite being the most modernised stand/s.

Any development to the rear would be self-supporting - it wouldn't balance on top of existing structures.
But a larger roof would require entirely new steelwork - so the additional revenue from the extra seats has to be enough to make that worthwhile.

[Here's-Johnny]

Think that’s the pic that was in the match day program when the first announced the redevelopment of the Longside and Bee Hole end. Obviously they scaled back quite a bit when the contractor quotes came in.

Barnfield appear to do well out Burnley....

[RicardoMontalban]

Barnfield appear to do well out Burnley....

They do, but I don’t think they built the two ‘new’ stands.

[CardyTheClaret]

For me, the only realistic way would be to relocate the Cricket Club for a couple of years and start building a new ground on that site. Looking at the footprint you could build three sides. Once the old ground is demolished you could then relocate the Cricket Club with a Pavilion attached to the fourth stand.

[Pickles]

For me, the only realistic way would be to relocate the Cricket Club for a couple of years and start building a new ground on that site. Looking at the footprint you could build three sides. Once the old ground is demolished you could then relocate the Cricket Club with a Pavilion attached to the fourth stand.

The key to all of these discussions is the Cricket Club. Got to respect the heritage of the place and their reasons for wanting to stay put. But any significant development for Turf Moor probably depends on some sort of deal like you describe above. Buying the Cricket Club out in some way shape or form opens up a heck of a lot of land.

[Dark Cloud]

An aerial view of the BL stand shows that there is about 12 - 15 foot between the back of the stand, and the pavement. That's makes a very large footprint for expansion. If they incorporated new dressing rooms and an away section in any 'Barry Kilby' Stand , it could leave the CFS to be rebuilt as a home only, safe standing area.
It would take a few years, and continued success to see it come to fruition, but I like to dream. 29-30,000 capacity is more than adequate for the Turf.

All this makes perfect sense until you get to the "29/30,000 bit. No way will we ever need that may seats or anything like it. Would be a huge white elephant and very costly mistake I fear.

[dsr]

Someone from East Anglia, from memory, Linpave or something like that. Anyone know?

I seem to remember they struggled to do it at the price they quoted, which was about £6m for the two stands. Half of which was covered by grants. Whatever the views about the qulity of the stands, in terms of value for money (bearing in mind the usual skintness of the club) they did well.

[Pickles]

All this makes perfect sense until you get to the "29/30,000 bit. No way will we ever need that may seats or anything like it. Would be a huge white elephant and very costly mistake I fear.

25,000 max would do.

[RicardoMontalban]

Someone from East Anglia, from memory, Linpave or something like that. Anyone know?

I seem to remember they struggled to do it at the price they quoted, which was about £6m for the two stands. Half of which was covered by grants. Whatever the views about the qulity of the stands, in terms of value for money (bearing in mind the usual skintness of the club) they did well.

Linpave. The relationship did not end well.

https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/n ... oor-stand/

[Rowls]

The key to all of these discussions is the Cricket Club. Got to respect the heritage of the place and their reasons for wanting to stay put. But any significant development for Turf Moor probably depends on some sort of deal like you describe above. Buying the Cricket Club out in some way shape or form opens up a heck of a lot of land.

Spot on.

It's not just a case of buying the cricket club, or their land. It's a case of helping them find an alternative suitable venue within the confines of Burnley. They don't want to move for the exact same reasons we wouldn't want to move.

[CardyTheClaret]

Spot on.

It's not just a case of buying the cricket club, or their land. It's a case of helping them find an alternative suitable venue within the confines of Burnley. They don't want to move for the exact same reasons we wouldn't want to move.

I totally agree. That's why I mentioned a new Pavilion. The Football club would have to sell it as a joint venture that could potentially hold more Cricket and have incredible facilities around it.

[Duffer_]

Agree the CC is key and any solution needs to be mutually benefical. I have read some pish on here though about how the CC wouldn't move due to the amount of beer they sell 20 times a year for our home games. Whilst that needs to be factored into the deal, to suggest a PL club couldn't surmount this is laughable.

[wilks_bfc]

Linpave. The relationship did not end well.

https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/n ... oor-stand/

“The club say work on the PA system, floodlight and drainage in the north stand was not completed to standard as agreed, an agreement on the final account had not yet been reached and Linpave did not complete the work on time.”

Still haven’t sorted the PA system

[superdimitri]

A 60,000-seater on top of Pendle Hill would do me. A nice cable car attraction, or a hundred canal locks would solve the transport problem.

Joking aside I love Turf Moor, but I suspect we face a similar problem to Everton when it comes to expansion, namely down to local residents behind the Bob Lord and the Cricket Club.

When Anfield expanded, they had to raze a bunch of houses not sure that will happen with us.

[wilks_bfc]

Agree the CC is key and any solution needs to be mutually benefical. I have read some pish on here though about how the CC wouldn't move due to the amount of beer they sell 20 times a year for our home games. Whilst that needs to be factored into the deal, to suggest a PL club couldn't surmount this is laughable.

The matchday revenue is partly to do with it, along with as mentioned above a suitable relocation for them.

There was talks many years ago of moving to Fulledge rec, but I think the residents around there objected to it

[Pickles]

A 60,000-seater on top of Pendle Hill would do me. A nice cable car attraction, or a hundred canal locks would solve the transport problem.

Ample parking in Barley.

[TsarBomba]

The problem with extending out of the back of the Bob Lord is that you are going above the extension that was done relatively recently. There is no space for a decent sized concourse and there's no space for access and turnstiles.

This was discussed on here not long ago. Adding a couple of rows on the the front of the Bob Lord and replacing the wooden seats could give us 500 to 1000 extra seats but we'd not have the concourse to accommodate those fans.

Rail seats in the CFS would cause the same problem. Having said that, it might be possible to add facilities behind the Jimmy Mac or the North stand to allow for additional capacity with rail seats in the lower tiers.

Building new stands is not economically viable unless there is significant additional commercial revenue to be gained. Building a single tier stand is never going to happen. It takes at least a generation to get the money back through ticket sales alone. ALK just aren't going to go down that route.

I appreciate your last paragraph, and I remember Liverpool saying the same when they were redeveloping Anfield recently re needing the commercial revenue to make it viable.

But we’re at the stage now, and really let’s be honest probably 10-20 years past the stage, where we have no choice but to do something, especially with the CFS.

It may not be economically viable to build a single tier without a commercial aspect, but it’s sure as hell makes no sense to keep pumping millions into the CFS in its current guise. I shudder to think how much we’ve spent since our first promotion on something that should have been demolished 20+ years ago.

[Roger1960]

Spot on.

It's not just a case of buying the cricket club, or their land. It's a case of helping them find an alternative suitable venue within the confines of Burnley. They don't want to move for the exact same reasons we wouldn't want to move.

Until recently I worked for a retail property development company, we approached the cricket club with the idea of buying their ground for a supermarket in the 1990,s they wanted and I suspect still do a new pavilion but couldn’t afford it so a sale and move to a new all singing ground was the answer. Finding a suitable relocation site was a totally different matter , they need a big flat site , didn’t want to go out of town and couldn’t compete on price with a lot of other uses. We eventually identified the site unity school now sits on as fitting the bill but the planning department knocked it back as an unsuitable use in the setting of Townley hall . But strangely the unity school with its “sympathetic” design was deemed ok a few years later . Having said that the old school site may be suitable and far enough from the hall not to upset the planners

[Rowls]

Until recently I worked for a retail property development company, we approached the cricket club with the idea of buying their ground for a supermarket in the 1990,s they wanted and I suspect still do a new pavilion but couldn’t afford it so a sale and move to a new all singing ground was the answer. Finding a suitable relocation site was a totally different matter , they need a big flat site , didn’t want to go out of town and couldn’t compete on price with a lot of other uses. We eventually identified the site unity school now sits on as fitting the bill but the planning department knocked it back as an unsuitable use in the setting of Townley hall . But strangely the unity school with its “sympathetic” design was deemed ok a few years later . Having said that the old school site may be suitable and far enough from the hall not to upset the planners

That's all rather sad.

You'd have imagined the local council would be keen to help the town's sports clubs.

[TheFamilyCat]

The matchday revenue is partly to do with it, along with as mentioned above a suitable relocation for them.

There was talks many years ago of moving to Fulledge rec, but I think the residents around there objected to it

Yeah, they'd have nowhere to let their dogs ****.

[TheFamilyCat]

Agree the CC is key and any solution needs to be mutually benefical. I have read some pish on here though about how the CC wouldn't move due to the amount of beer they sell 20 times a year for our home games. Whilst that needs to be factored into the deal, to suggest a PL club couldn't surmount this is laughable.

I'm pretty sure stand with much bigger capacity could be built in the footprint of the CFS with no need to buy more land from BCC.

[summitclaret]

There is plenty of land at the cricket club. It's one of the biggest around. BFC just need to buy a strip behind the CFS to build a new stand with rail seating and more corporate. Also, BFC own all the land parallel to Harry Potts Way, which provides space for hospitality etc.

[Claretforever]

What we built at the time we built it, and in that I include the Longside terrace and roof, the Bob Lord and Cricket Field developments, plus the 90’s stands, were more than suitable for the time. Time has moved on and with that so have expectations.

I don’t want to move from the Turf under any circumstances, but it wouldn’t bother me to have a fully new stadium built on the same site. If it were a bowl, so be it, though I do like to look a bit different. The location is the important part for a club like Burnley. If we move to the edge of town or out of it then the club would struggle to attract fans for unfancied fixtures. Transport and support infrastructure doesn’t exist around these parts for that either. Being in town allows us to maintain a certain level of support.

All that said but I don’t think we need more than 2 new stands right now. An L shaped structure to include the Bob Lord and Cricket Field would be fine, and just how Bob Lord originally envisaged Turf Moor in the 1960’s.

[timel0veandtendayi]

If the Cricket Club won't move because of the extra revenue through parking and away fans drinking there on match days, one option could be to help them relocate, and subsidise them by letting them maintain an away fanzone and carpark on the 'new' stadium footprint for X amount of years.

[dibraidio]

I appreciate your last paragraph, and I remember Liverpool saying the same when they were redeveloping Anfield recently re needing the commercial revenue to make it viable.

But we’re at the stage now, and really let’s be honest probably 10-20 years past the stage, where we have no choice but to do something, especially with the CFS.

It may not be economically viable to build a single tier without a commercial aspect, but it’s sure as hell makes no sense to keep pumping millions into the CFS in its current guise. I shudder to think how much we’ve spent since our first promotion on something that should have been demolished 20+ years ago.

What's wrong with the CFS? I've heard plenty complain that the concourse is too small.
Claretforever said

The Cricket Field stand won’t continue passing its safety inspection. The roof structure has rusted to an extent that they didn’t dare touch it when they blast cleaned and re coated the stanchions silver back in 2014, instead covering it with banners. It barely passed its inspection a year or two ago, and you can clearly see how deteriorated it looks when you’re in the stand. It’s safe for now, but HAS to be replaced soon. If not the entire stand then the roof structure. BFC were talking about replacing it in the year 2000!!!

If the stand is structurally sound surely a new roof has got to be a lot cheaper than rebuilding the entire stand? Would it be possible to install a cantilever roof on the existing stand? If we did presumably it would be angled up rather than down which might have a detrimental impact on the atmosphere or have things moved on since the other stands were built? Obviously just replacing the roof wouldn't change any of the issues with the concourse or increase the capacity or add any commercial capacity.

[giveusaB]

Would it be possible to dig down below ground level and lower the pitch enabling the existing stands to have extra rows added at the front of each stand.
The problem would be the time between the end of the season and the start of the next and with new drainage and under soil heating to install plus laying a new playing surface would mean it would have to be completed in 3 months and then again seeing how long it took to do the corner stands it’s probably a non starter.There’s a possibility we might stumble upon the previous owners dry powder store!

[Andreshotboots]

Easy. Just plan to turn the pitch like spurs did and begin construction of the new ground in the current North Stand car park area without any major input on the current stadium.

Once it's half done, ground share with PNE for a couple of seasons and done..sparkly new stadium, right where we love it..anybody got £300 million spare?