Looking forward to some good away days this year. Nice to see that most teams have a modern ground now or are planning for one in the future

The temporary roof structures for the Northern Terrace and a section of the Western Terrace at Belle Vue have been approved by WMDC. Work is due to start in January with a projected 1 month build. Public Inquiry for the new stadium is due to start next Tuesday and will last for 12 days. The outcome of that is expected to be announced in March.

Sticks have just gone up at Salford

Might be a little funny if the stand faced the direction of Holland, unless you mean New Holland in Lincolnshire that is

While that may be true, most away teams supporters enjoy the game from the North stand so it's a moot point as to how bad the South is

I do not think any rugby league supporter at HKR or any other club would argue that the South stand at HKR is in great need for redevelopment. Remember though the stadium was not just built for Rugby League but greyhounds and more recently speedway too. This obviously meant the stand had to be set back quite some distance from the pitch and as attendances for the rugby never went high enough for us to think about redevelopment it would have been a wasted cash.

Now we have gained promotion, a large supporter base and have a second licence for a further three years we are well aware that the stadium needs major work. As the sole occupants of the ground we can now bring the stands pitch side which is much more supporter friendly.

Unfortunately for HKR the time this has come at has been the most expensive time to build. This has caused delays and issues which has dragged out but as stated our current temporary stand is being moved to the South stand which is perfectly adequate for away supporters as it should be placed there with a roof over the top.

A lovely new stand at the North end of the ground will house a corporate facility to rival the best in the game while also housing 2,600 more fans. With the extension on the East stand we have the prospect of a 4 sided ground and if rumours are correct a proposal for a new south stand that is unique to the sport (whatever that means) could see the only stand that needs to be replace or modernised being the Roger Millward stand.

I would have thought now would be a relatively cheap time to build as the construction industry is on its backside with the economy tanking and infrastructure and capital budgets slashed across the country.

You would have thought that, especially as the price of labour is half what it was 5 years ago, but alas, the price of materials has rocketed due to energy costs of manufacture and delivery. A typical example is that a 5.5m length of skirting I bought two years ago cost me around £6, yesterday my son bought some for a job and it cost him over £11.

When your talking about a big project you can see how £6 million has turned to £8.2 million in a year or so.

But don't forget, once the building starts the costs rocket past the original estimates and the customer gets ripped off at every opportunity!

Fixed price lump sum soon stops that.

Are Wakefield putting a roof on the Away end????

They said they were, but I've yet to see or hear anything else about it since the license announcement. Personally I think it was just hot air to make their bid sound better. Hopefully I'm wrong.

rlhttp://www.loverugbyleague.com/news_5781-wakefield-announce-stadium-expansion.htmlrl

Permission granted 28th Nov.

More info here rlhttps://planning.wakefield.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab

Actually I would say the end stand at Perpignan I saw a few years ago was worse. It was just nearly as far from the pitch but had a big fence around it!