The exhibition was very busy and informative. There’s general publicity available from the Daily Echo, but here are some of the key facts gleaned by Ben Smith from the exhibition itself.
There will be an increase to 14,500 seats which adds about 3,000.
This will still be the smallest top flight ground by some way.
There’s unlikely to be any increase in away fans.
The increase also focuses on providing better facilities including disabled facilities.
As part of the application, there is a travel plan designed by an advisor to Fulham.
Match day traffic management wasn’t covered, but hopefully the club will work with Yellow Buses on promotions. There will also be a rewards system for car shares and people will be encouraged to use the extra car parks provided. At present, theses schemes aren’t used.
There’s a car park with 200 spaces that usually only gets 20 cars in, so the new capacity would probably be easily used here.
Regarding trains, the club is working with SWT as part of a plan to reschedule trains to ensure they time with matches. There is no specific news beyond this, but there is a clear commitment to work with both stations.
Quite a bit of effort has gone into thought for disabled fans. It will be a massive improvement with a significant increase in higher-level disabled access seats. It will put other clubs to shame. It also adds more weight to the need for better access to Pokesdown train station.
Overall it does seem relatively modest, but can be completed very quickly. It is possible if planning goes through to have it completed for next season.
As a fan there isn’t anything to upset anyone in this with the mitigating factors of travel plans. The extra capacity will, of course, provide a huge boost to the traders, pubs and cafes in the area. There is talk or rumours over what the long term plans are, but hopefully the club plans to stay in Kings Park. This (if granted) clearly is high quality so probably looks like they want to. The plans will be submitted in around 10 days from 17 March 2016.