New roof

Quoted from RonMariner

Barrow have erected a couple of new stands in the close season. One on the West terrace that added 371 seats, and one in the north east corner that increases away seating by 522 seats.

I can't help but think there is space in the open corners for at least 1,000 extra seats. Any replacement of the Main stand would almost certainly lead to a temporary reduction in capacity, maybe even for an entire season. So to my mind, you put the extra seats in the corners first, then address the Main stand.

But something needs to be done. We are a club going places, with great momentum. I can see us at the top end of L1 before long, and there is no reason why we shouldn't expect gates for big matches to have the potential to be well over 10,000.  That capacity and more could be accommodated at BP if the ground is improved. Certainlly a more realistic option than dreaming about £50 million new stadium.  

We never got well over 10000 last time we were in Div 2 (championship)

Quoted from Norseman

We never got well over 10000 last time we were in Div 2 (championship)

Times have changed in the last 20 years. We need to look forward .

Quoted from The Yard Dog

Club was told on Thursday that it had to be replace for safety issues.

That is very last minute.com, leaving them just over a week to find a company who has the availability to come out immediately and assess what needs to be done etc and then get it completed in such a short time frame

I can only assume the lack of notice come about due to sudden structural damage/failure of the roof?

Again, the discussion about temporary seating has arisen but a question is why so we need them?

For the most part, fans are not situated behind the goal in the Ozzie, not the corner blocks, with this in mind, surely we only consider temporary seating once that is full regularly?

Before anyone talks about the view, I get that but having sat in the temporary seats last time, albeit for half time, the view wasn’t great either and with consistently increased numbers in all stands, the corners, particularly between findus and pontoon, the space is needed to some degree.

I know it’s about future planning but even I can see that the temporary seating would likely cost money and stand idle, that or you shut the Ozzie to home fans, which makes zero sense…

I’m not saying don’t look to the future but still nobody has answered the question of just how many are allegedly being turned away (at what point do clubs just accept this, you can’t keep expanding) or looked at how many extra seats it would provide and then income…

Quoted from aldi_01

Again, the discussion about temporary seating has arisen but a question is why so we need them?

For the most part, fans are not situated behind the goal in the Ozzie, not the corner blocks, with this in mind, surely we only consider temporary seating once that is full regularly?

Before anyone talks about the view, I get that but having sat in the temporary seats last time, albeit for half time, the view wasn’t great either and with consistently increased numbers in all stands, the corners, particularly between findus and pontoon, the space is needed to some degree.

I know it’s about future planning but even I can see that the temporary seating would likely cost money and stand idle, that or you shut the Ozzie to home fans, which makes zero sense…

I’m not saying don’t look to the future but still nobody has answered the question of just how many are allegedly being turned away (at what point do clubs just accept this, you can’t keep expanding) or looked at how many extra seats it would provide and then income…

If you tell me how many people decided not to go for a walk yesterday because it was raining I will tell you how many people are being turned away from Blundell Park due to lack of availability of suitable seats.

Quoted from rancido

And as the capacity increases and the attendance increases , the available car parking spaces ( on street parking) remains the same. All this talk of park and ride is just not viable. A park and ride purely for BP is not financially viable for 26 occasions a year and it would be hard to convince the Council and Stagecoach to fund such a system based on what - a seaside resort that has several routes of access.

Surely the point is about a matchday specific park and ride system, not a day-to-day one.  

The club have (and will continue to have) data on season ticket holders, of which they now form the absolute majority of those going.  That data could be used to determine where people are coming in from, use that to strategically set-up park and ride systems.  Even without using the data you would think for those who will be travelling in from outside the Grimsby/Clee boundaries, you've only really got three routes.  1) A46 - set one up at Grimsby College/Nuns Corner, huge car park which isn't used on weekends.  2) A180 - Surely to god there's something around the Pyewipe we could utilise, even if it's not exactly the same spot every week.  There's huge variation in how full the massive depots are for new cars.  3) A16 - I suspect it's the lesser flow of GTFC traffic of the 3, Tollbar's got a decent sized car park.

Closer to the ground for those who will want to drive in or it's more convenient, it's just about making best use of what's around us.  The aforementioned Ice House. Grant Street car park, which is virtually empty from September through to April, even in the height of summer it seems vastly under-utilised.  Both 10 minute walks from the ground.  Easy enough to do an online booking system for them or just have a bloke on the gate charging £2.  

Yeah, at the minute you can find street parking as you get closer to the ground if you get there early enough.  But last season tested this, I suspect this season will be the same if not worse.  If, big if, we do increase capacity and attendance then we will need to think differently about these things.    It's not impossible either.  Parking should not be the motivator behind a stadium move in my opinion, especially when there are options available to us.

Quoted from HerveJosse

If you tell me how many people decided not to go for a walk yesterday because it was raining I will tell you how many people are being turned away from Blundell Park due to lack of availability of suitable seats.

Excellent analogy.  

The simple answer is we just don't know.  We'll never know unless we took a poll of every single person who has ever thought about GTFC in their life.

I'm convinced it's an ongoing issue.  It's a small sample and a lot of it is anecdotal, but it is happening on this very forum.  People aren't coming because only excrement seats are available.  The excrement seats should be discounted from the overall capacity.  

The overflow for the Osmond is a fair point, if we're not fully utilising that then there's little point in expanding any other areas.  But last season the overflows were opened last minute, by which point there's the potential that we missed the boat on some fans who simply found something else to do having seen 5 days before kick-off that only excrement seats were available.

A better and a more entertaining team will always attract more fans.  I firmly believe we're going for it this season, I think we'll be challenging and giving a lot of fancied teams bloody noses.  I also think we're in for an entertaining performance that's packed with pace, energy, high press and a lot of intensity.  Both of those are going to see an increase on demand from last season.  

I appreciate you can't just put temp seats in 'just in case'.  But there's also something about being bold, brave and seeing what happens.  Rent some seats out for the first few months of the season, see what happens.  If it doesn't work, the losses are minimal.  But least we know.

That I'm aware of, nothing has been done to improve the season-ticket release scheme.  That's a problem that, in my opinion, should have been high on the list of priorities for the summer.   That, along with the reluctance to try something different in the corners, is something I've a feeling we might be regretting if we hit the floor running.

Quoted from diehardmariner

Excellent analogy.  

The simple answer is we just don't know.  We'll never know unless we took a poll of every single person who has ever thought about GTFC in their life.

I'm convinced it's an ongoing issue.  It's a small sample and a lot of it is anecdotal, but it is happening on this very forum.  People aren't coming because only excrement seats are available.  The excrement seats should be discounted from the overall capacity.  

The overflow for the Osmond is a fair point, if we're not fully utilising that then there's little point in expanding any other areas.  But last season the overflows were opened last minute, by which point there's the potential that we missed the boat on some fans who simply found something else to do having seen 5 days before kick-off that only excrement seats were available.

A better and a more entertaining team will always attract more fans.  I firmly believe we're going for it this season, I think we'll be challenging and giving a lot of fancied teams bloody noses.  I also think we're in for an entertaining performance that's packed with pace, energy, high press and a lot of intensity.  Both of those are going to see an increase on demand from last season.  

I appreciate you can't just put temp seats in 'just in case'.  But there's also something about being bold, brave and seeing what happens.  Rent some seats out for the first few months of the season, see what happens.  If it doesn't work, the losses are minimal.  But least we know.

That I'm aware of, nothing has been done to improve the season-ticket release scheme.  That's a problem that, in my opinion, should have been high on the list of priorities for the summer.   That, along with the reluctance to try something different in the corners, is something I've a feeling we might be regretting if we hit the floor running.

I know we are talking about capacity increase a lot to please non regulars and stayaway fans , but surely improving the experience for regularw  is the priority (which has already been done to some degree ) I think continuing to do that with a new PA system and the replacement of the roofs and none impeded views would be a starting point , we have the use of the majority of the osmond for 70% of the season and would get it for probably 50% of the time even in league 1 - increase capacity by 200 or 300 which seems relatively easy on the face of it ; see if we regularly fill BP with improved matchday experience and go from there .

There are plenty of tickets available for Wimbledon
Will be loads for Salford
I think we are maybe overthinking the capacity as a problem atm when in probability it won't be all season unless we do really well and there is in fact 2k glory seekers kicking around .

Quoted from Mappers

I know we are talking about capacity increase a lot to please non regulars and stayaway fans , but surely improving the experience for regularw  is the priority (which has already been done to some degree ) I think continuing to do that with a new PA system and the replacement of the roofs and none impeded views would be a starting point , we have the use of the majority of the osmond for 70% of the season and would get it for probably 50% of the time even in league 1 - increase capacity by 200 or 300 which seems relatively easy on the face of it ; see if we regularly fill BP with improved matchday experience and go from there .

There are plenty of tickets available for Wimbledon
Will be loads for Salford
I think we are maybe overthinking the capacity as a problem atm when in probability it won't be all season unless we do really well and there is in fact 2k glory seekers kicking around .

The problem with this is that we will be reducing home capacity for the most attractive fixtures.  How many other clubs in the EFL do this?  Surely we should be busting a gut to please non-regular and stayaway fans.  How else are the club going to convert them into loyal regulars?

Quoted from Mappers

Surely the best parking is at the ice house always empty , I know probably not for the elderly or physically less able but for most a nice ten min walk .

Surely that depends on if the owners want it used as a car park?