London Stadium persistent standing to be reviewed

The government Sports Grounds Safety Authority (SGSA) have announced that they will be bringing in a new enforcement policy on persistent standing for next season and will be looking at the risk assessments and high-risk areas at West Ham games.

They say the greatest risk at the London Stadium is to the upper tiers with the away supporters. In the Safety Advisory Group (SAG) meeting in May they acknowledged that operators London Stadium 185 have done a great deal of work to get fans to sit down but more could still be done.

SGSA said they are concerned about a progressive crowd collapse on the upper tiers. With the improvement of technology, there are other solutions such as barriers or rail type seating.  The SGSA said would like to propose that consideration be given to reviewing seating in the upper tier and to see if there is a technological solution that could be implemented to reduce the risk of a progressive crowd collapse.

The comments were and minuted by Newham’s SAG on 2nd May 2019