Quote rhinoms="rhinoms"Did anyone attend the presentation and see the revised plans for the new SS?'"
Popped in last night and some of the discussions with the guys from the club and architects there were interesting. There seemed to be a little bit of despondency as to why the council were so unhelpful in developing the RL stadium compared to the seeming carte blanche given to the cricket ground (the latter in their eyes is "prestigious" whereas we ... aren't). Interestingly, it was felt that the Carnegie Stand may be a negative factor as it turned out to be rather bigger than the "locals" had expected and hence they and the planning authorities are keeping a rather closer eye on the new S Stand
I asked about what consideration had been given in the design to keeping the atmosphere and was told that Mr Caddick had taken a personal interest in that aspect and they had done all they could to ensure as much noise is retained as possible. The comparison with the Halliwell Jones is apparently invalid as the roof at the back is much lower (at the HJ it is 9m high with the screen there).
The architects seem less obsessed than the fans about the loss of the corners - the SW corner is being lost to enable Jason Booth to bring through his tractors. Which doesn't quite answer what's up in the SE corner and there was a thought that yes maybe a bit of uncovered standing space could eventually be recovered there too if the investment was justified by the crowds we were getting.
With a capacity of 14,500 until it is built S Stand season ticket holders will be squeezed into the rest of the stadium anywhere they will fit. The idea of playing more away games early doors has been requested of the RFL as will maybe holding back the "big" games until after targetted completion in July. This would go against the wishes of the coaching staff who do not like the thought of a tough sequence of big games backloaded into the season's schedule though.
Lastly I had expected that someone before me would have pointed out that the North Marker on the map on the wall ([url=http://docs.leedsrugby.com/Public_Consultation.pdfand on Page 4 of this document[/url) was in fact facing South, but apparently not. I'll take a £100,000 consultancy fee for helping them avoid getting planning permission to build it facing the road
