[Official Site] FAN EXPERIENCE UPGRADES AT OAKWELL

Re point about Beevor Court, Im not sure about the rationale exactly of closing it to pedestrians but the point about fire engines isn’t true is it? All the away buses manage to make it from the Queens Ground car park round the back of the club on a match-day and exit via Beevor Court so I assume ambulance/ fire engines wouldn’t have a problem going the other way?

 

About 12.30 people start to rock up

 

Yeah they open it once the away buses have left (and I think that’s the queue for the rest of the car park gates to open)
Maybe thats part of the reason they don't want fans exiting that way

 

Also on the point of having someone to control the traffic, it’s also not as simple as it sounds and not something the club were able to implement, even though they wanted to. Steve Croft, who runs the flag bearers and is part of the Trust board, worked as part of the road and traffic management dept at the council most of his working life and he explained at a meeting once why the club itself couldn’t put this in place. I can’t remember the details now, but could find out. (Was a while ago)

 

The access is near the tunnel, no? Just on the other side of the player car park that is setup to allow multiple coaches to pass every single game. Seems a perfectly easy route that isnt blocked by fans leaving in an emergency.

 

In my experience, prior to the changes, people would park up there and drop off and pick people up and very likely blocking the access to emergency vehicles. Its not really very wide that road even though it is two way. I can see why the emergency services thought that was an issue.

 

Don’t forget either. The club didn’t chose any of this. The choice at the beginning of last season, based on the findings of the report into the Manchester bombings, was implement the changes or play behind closed doors with the financial and EFL sanctions that that this would create.

 

Just because someone said something, doesn’t mean it’s true necessarily. I see ambulances stationed that side of the ground most games and regularly see police vehicles. (I’ve spent a lot of time in that car park over the last few years )

Other clubs do have similar challenges so that isn’t true. I attended multiple meetings with SYP and other fan reps from local clubs and Wednesday fans were complaining about similar closures not so long ago. It’s not a finding that only Barnsley’s SAG have decided to implement. It’s across football. Other stadia, particularly more modern ones, may have better access that make the issue less of a problem. Unfortunately, until the lease on the stadium is renewed and something can be done to improve access to alleviate some of these issues, I expect we have to live with them in the short term

As has already been said, from a driving point of view, most grounds I visited that have car parks end up taking time to get out of. Some a lot longer than ours. The pedestrian access via Beevor court, although inconvenient, means a few more minutes walking doesn’t it? It’s **** for lazy ******** like me But god forbid if something did happen at least we wouldn’t see the sorts of issues faced in Manchester.

One other thing, it’s not that easy to argue against security or health and safety recommendations, particularly if you might end up being culpable for going against those recommendations in the eventuality that the worse case scenario plays out.