what winter, its still to come

Come on guys are any of you really surprised? Like the other poster said Belle Vue has been on its knees for a long long time, you'll probably find that Andrew Glover was ordered to improve things with your stadium and given a time period to to do this.
Apart from putting a roof over a few terraces hes not done much else? Your welfare facilities are stuck back in the 80s your terraces are actually sinking, are the electrics at the stadium upto new regulations? I remember the Willows have £600k spent on it rewiring the electrics for the floodlights replacing seating in both stands, replacing crush barriers putting in new upto date toilets, basically a big over hall, and even the willows was seen by Salford as old and dated, in that time belle view has stayed exactly the same.

The wettest January since records began wasn't it? And that's before we get any snow or hard frost, that I understand can further degrade damaged concrete.

Just saw a Tweet from DC suggesting that the problem is with the way the barriers have been fixed into the concrete; I know absolutely nowt about this type of thing, but it doesn't sound like *that* difficult a problem to rectify - or am I wrong?!

The strength of the barriers is reliant upon the concrete its cast into/bolted to (I've never actually noticed how they're fixed). If this isn't up to standard it will topple if enough lateral pressure is applied to it. I don't think that would actually ever happen. BV isn't the Kop when surges from the back force everyone forward when the home team scored.

Having said that there is obviously a minimum standard to comply with and it will be a patch repair rather than a complete overhaul. However there are a fair number of barriers and if all need rectifying it will take time.

Isn't there a historical issue with the construction of the terraces?
AFAIK they were just built on Victorian piles of shale/ash which they used to watch from.
Wasn't this why it would have been difficult/prohibitively expensive to develop proper stands on the terraces?
Maybe someone knows more?

Article on back page of todays Wakey Express states that "much of the work relates to barrier reinforcements"

Is it possible that this is "pressure" being applied to push the Newmarket development on?
In truth I'm very cynical by nature, but it was alluded to recently that things were going slow and the club needed to do all they could do to show how necessary the scheme was and hey presto wakey are in the headlines and in a position to get national exposure to promote the development. I accept its a gamble, but is it a calculated one? I find it very hard to believe that someone as astute as KH waits 3/4 weeks before a season starts to complete a H&S inspection on an ever ageing, decaying iconic stadium.
Either way I really do feel for genuine fans as it must feel like one kick in the teeth after another. I know Cas had to spend in the region of £50,000 to bring the floodlights up to specification and this is money we can't really afford to spend, but we can't afford not to spend it either.

Presumably to stop them catching fire again...

The inspection should have been carried out at the end of last season not 2- weeks before the start of the new season to give us time to carry out repairs, this is stupid who ever made this dicision is an idiot and should be sacked.

I have heard (allbeit form a fellow CT supporter) that as well as the crash barrier and terracing issues WTW also failed the H & S test on emergency egress i.e. fire exits. doesn't sound too much to rectify though and i'm sure you will get it sorted for the big pay-day on Good Friday.

I've got a sledgehammer, Michael, where do you want me ??

Your joking aren't you? they are the safest part of the stadium!!!!
I'd also suggest that our flats are considerably better than your retirement bungalows at the railway end!

By the looks of the terracting it doesn't surprise me at all that the barriers would be deemed to be unsafe. It is literally crumbled away under my feet twice last year.

Wouldn't this be a good opportunity to bring a local building contractor, that covers a range of trades, to join up with the club as a partner.

Not only would the ground be maintained, there would also be the corporate aspect that the company would bring into the club