Plans to turn the Club shop into flats?

Henry Irving said:

Airman Brown said:

I doubt if you would get a bigger retail space in the former Corner Flag, which in any case is leased out to the community trust, will probably be yielding a rent and is likely to have been refurbished with public money, all of which could be obstacles.

I suspect the Belgians would like to build over the space currently used as a secondary vehicle entrance to create a continuous residential development with the existing Floyd Road housing.

Personally, I am against selling off bits of The Valley with no long-term strategic plan t make the best use of the site. The land sold on Valley Grove would have yielded a much bigger return as parking over time and provided more sensible access. The Lansdowne Mews land sold would add massively to the cost of any further stadium development in that area.

The problem with retail is that it would struggle to justify a non-matchday operation, especially to someone daft enough to close the ticket office in midweek, so you could easily end up with mail order run from the ticket office and matchday souvenir stalls, all of which of course would meet the Belgians' number one objective of cost cutting.

It does make sense to combine the retail and ticketing operation, which is why it was tried before, but the layout of the stadium doesn't make this easy. Having the main retail presence at the O2 (or Bexleyheath) is a complete non-starter.

All of which fits with the gossip I was hearing, albeit third hand.

It would also fit in with Roland's willingness to splash out on Cap Ex projects but penny pinch on operations

It would also fit in with the "do things in isolation and without thinking through the consequences" management style.

An ambitious club with clear, long term plans to improve the facilities and "match day experience" would be looking at the whole of the West Stand/car park/shop location and looking to see how to maximise income and value of the club.

They wouldn't be looking to reduce the retail offering to stalls but KM has nothing learn from fans, she's told us that.

Building a large scales extension on the West Stand to create a better retail space, more offices, more lounges and better dressing rooms would be expensive and problematic but would be a long term solution to a number of issues.

On a side note if the subs benches are too small for the premier league guidelines (and I'm not sure where that comes from) then now is the time to do it ie when the gates are low and you can re-locate the seat holders to vacant seats. But please tell the season ticket holders first and offer them some compensation. Don't dodge the issue in the way you did the West Stand lifts for disabled fans by just not sending out passes.

EastStand said:

Personally, I am against selling off bits of The Valley with no long-term strategic plan

That's it, the end.
If you don't see a problem with this you're a mental person.

AFKABartram said:

good work Inspector

SantaClaus said:

Leaving aside everything else that stinks about this proposal, how can they justify squeezing four flats into such a small site? Feckin tight bastards.

stonemuse said:

PL54 said:

So you think the plan is to sell the ground ?

Sell the ground, merge with the Spanners, move to the Peninsula, play in red and blue, become a feeder club for Palarse, open a club shop in New Cross, appoint Ian Holloway as manager, close all catering services, sell all Academy players to the Hamsters, and limit Valley Express to one minivan.

vff said:

Swisdom said:

Don't bite my head of everyone - I love the Valley. I know it's our home and everything......

But is moving to a new all seater stadium that might just be slightly easier to get to and from really the end of the world?

I would be OK moving from the Valley and a state of the art stadium owned by Charlton with good transport links. It would be good for the club. The problem is that if Duchatelet has anything to do with it, Staprix will own the stadium and Charlton would have to pay rent. I understand that there is a similar arrangement at one of this other clubs. I can also see a lot of the money from the sale of the ground disappearing into his own pocket. Duchatelet is not to be trusted.

LenGlover said:

The Organiser said:

vff said:

Swisdom said:

Don't bite my head of everyone - I love the Valley. I know it's our home and everything......

But is moving to a new all seater stadium that might just be slightly easier to get to and from really the end of the world?

I would be OK moving from the Valley and a state of the art stadium owned by Charlton with good transport links. It would be good for the club. The problem is that if Duchatelet has anything to do with it, Staprix will own the stadium and Charlton would have to pay rent. I understand that there is a similar arrangement at one of this other clubs. I can also see a lot of the money from the sale of the ground disappearing into his own pocket. Duchatelet is not to be trusted.

We're in a decent stadium, owned by Charlton, with good transport links now and our ground means more to the club and fans that any club in the Country. I would not be okay with it - that would be a tipping point for me.

Leaving The Valley would be the end for me.

The history, heritage and emotion of 50 plus years support, alien concepts to Meire I realise, is all tied up in The Valley for me.

On reflection maybe I shouldn't have made this post as I am the kind of fan Meire detests and she might consider it a good idea to exorcise me and others of my ilk from the Club.

Bournemouth Addick said:

Addickforlife said:

sam3110 said:

Airman Brown said:

There's also a version in which the ticket office is closed permanently, with all non matchday sales forced online, and the shop goes in there with new frontage.

Pay on the day, with phone apps and contactless cards, seats allocated a la cinema style booking screens. All you would need is a couple dozen terminals set on the outside of the stands. No need for ticket office then. Combine with moving retail into the stand itself and I don't see the problem.

The real problem is if we start selling off bits that matter a whole lot more

Not a chance that would work.

I've worked closely with ticketing operations at different sports clubs, and there is no way you can move everything online. There are so many issues that arise that require the need for a ticket office staffed by people not machines.

Edit. Sorry Airman, you've basically said the same thing.

...well that's a nailed on certainty for next season then.

LargeAddick said:

Fumbluff said:

great place for a flat, lots of nice views from the windows...let him do it, they won't sell, it'll be another loss for the master of disaster...

well the ground floor masonette opposite, the one with the burger bar on the pavement and a lovely view of the railway behind, sold only a couple of weeks ago for nearly 300k (see below) so I wouldn't be too sure that they wouldn't sell, because they would, and a tidy sum would be made profit wise too

rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-50464642.html

Big_Bad_World said:

Right thread this time.

Will the flats have a view of the pitch? If so, will they be discounted as a result?

Hopefully this is just all rumour and nothing else. We've heard murmurings of this nature before so fully appreciate the discontent this sort of thing brings.

Still, on the bright side, our murmurings were centred around a peninsula move as well so we may well be housemates in the future.

That'd be nice.

The Organiser said:

vff said:

Swisdom said:

Don't bite my head of everyone - I love the Valley. I know it's our home and everything......

But is moving to a new all seater stadium that might just be slightly easier to get to and from really the end of the world?

I would be OK moving from the Valley and a state of the art stadium owned by Charlton with good transport links. It would be good for the club. The problem is that if Duchatelet has anything to do with it, Staprix will own the stadium and Charlton would have to pay rent. I understand that there is a similar arrangement at one of this other clubs. I can also see a lot of the money from the sale of the ground disappearing into his own pocket. Duchatelet is not to be trusted.

We're in a decent stadium, owned by Charlton, with good transport links now and our ground means more to the club and fans that any club in the Country. I would not be okay with it - that would be a tipping point for me.

cafc1263 said:

The Organiser said:

vff said:

Swisdom said:

Don't bite my head of everyone - I love the Valley. I know it's our home and everything......

But is moving to a new all seater stadium that might just be slightly easier to get to and from really the end of the world?

I would be OK moving from the Valley and a state of the art stadium owned by Charlton with good transport links. It would be good for the club. The problem is that if Duchatelet has anything to do with it, Staprix will own the stadium and Charlton would have to pay rent. I understand that there is a similar arrangement at one of this other clubs. I can also see a lot of the money from the sale of the ground disappearing into his own pocket. Duchatelet is not to be trusted.

We're in a decent stadium, owned by Charlton, with good transport links now and our ground means more to the club and fans that any club in the Country. I would not be okay with it - that would be a tipping point for me.

This is what it's all been about whoever bought the club 2 years ago.