Minutes of the latest London Stadium Safety Advisory Group (LS-SAG) held in December have revealed further details about the new North and South seating re-design.
Minutes confirm that E20 have appointed a company (Arena Events Group) to do the work on the north and south seating system saying there is an intense period of detailed design and prototype between December and the end of January 2020.
They go to say the plan is to have them installed in the London Stadium after Athletics in July in 2020. The new seating will have no impact on the total 60,000 capacity in the stadium. The document reveals ‘Wet seats plan to be drafted by end of January 2020 to manage the 300 people in each stand outside the roof line, and a new manifest will go in at that time.’ Stadium owners E20 say they are committed to reviewing the side screenings and the segregation line will be redesigned as proposed earlier in the year. They are currently assessing the void treatment and what would happen on a progressive collapse.
Newham Council raised their concerns during the meeting about what information will go out on the wet seat and risk of seat migration if it rains. A new seating manifest from West Ham Football Club must be submitted to Newham Council.
The news that the design and prototype phase ended at the end of January means that the Official Supporters’ Board (OSB) due to meet nest week on 25th February can have little impact in changing any designs before the seating is installed in the July. It appears that the decisions have already been make before designs and plans will be shown to them by Karren Brady a week next Tuesday.
But what about the thousands of seats at the back of the stands that are still covered up and never used ? There must be a thousand empty just behind me in the Billy Bonds Stand ! Just who is it benefitting by leaving them all empty ? it is certainly not helping any ones revenue or the atmosphere in the stadium! Someone please raise this issue at the next meeting.
If they can reconfigure the seating at the ends why don’t they do the same to the sides as well bringing everyone closer to the pitch. It would certainly go a long way to appease the fans. It’s one of the main gripes about the stadium.
With Moyes as the manager can they throw in a blind fold with each ticket??? ( let’s see if the next time we are 3-1 up he can take off our best 3 players and draw the game, WOFT)