Jurassic Park – Villa Shelve Ambitious Redevelopment Plans – What Next?

Villa Park is home. Our historic and collective focal point as supporters since 1897.

It was, until the year 2000 at least, also a place of true football stadia nostalgia.

That was until then owner Doug Ellis saw fit to oversee the unceremonious destruction of Archibald Leitch’s architectural masterpiece; the original Trinity Road Stand.

Its replacement, a large generic Playmobil-inspired construction, sits opposite the smaller and narrower ‘Witton Lane Stand’, infamous for its claustrophobic concourse and soulless feel. The latter, restricted in size and scope at the time of building due to its proximity to residential properties also had seating replaced shortly after opening following complaints of cramped conditions.

The Holte End, by contrast, is an imposing two-tiered monolith, with red brick staircases and houses a 13,000-strong battalion for each home fixture. The addition of a prominent tiled mosaic during the Randy Lerner years was a wise nod to the lost features of the former Trinity and provided extra character to our main home stand.

However, even The Holte hasn’t remained sacred, having recently been bastardised following the ill-conceived decision to introduce The Terrace View and Lower Grounds. The Terrace View sticks out as an awkward off-centre visual and reduced already limited concourse space. The Lower Grounds took away a facility traditionally accessed by season ticket holders both before and after kick-off. Both have become paid-for “premium” offerings.

Staring back at The Holte meekly is the epitome of a dated 1970s era design; The North Stand. One wonders whether it was fit for purpose when it was originally unveiled. It hasn’t been fit for a good long time and it certainly isn’t in 2023. A steam cleaning and a claret banner aside to improve the facade, it’s the first impression visitors to the ground get when arriving by train and approaching from the station on foot. It’s an eyesore, with mediocre facilities and has become a growing source of embarrassment over some years.

Despite these nuances, Villa Park remains revered by supporters and for many visiting fans is a stadium firmly on the bucket list. That’s the power of attending a genuinely classic football ground, steeped in the heritage of a sport many follow with tribalism and passion week in and week out.

Removing our claret-tinted glasses for a moment and putting sentiment aside, Villa Park is in desperate need of a cosmetic face-lift and investment in improved amenities. It just can’t be denied. Whilst there’s a romanticism about English football grounds, we’ve neither preserved the best elements nor modernised ours particularly gracefully. It’s the uncomfortable truth. This is not a clamour for a soulless ground a la Etihad, a padded seat or an on-site craft brewery. This is about functioning modern amenity that is increasingly the norm at top Premier League and European venues, but not Villa Park.

So, it was long overdue and welcome news when announced that the club intended to make significant redevelopment of the North Stand area and its surrounds. It was a truly progressive, well-considered and ambitious plan for the club, transport connectivity and the local community.

It was a grand £100m investment that succeeded in securing buy-in across multiple agencies, from local government to politicians and included the requisite public consultation. These are protracted and meticulous processes which were properly negotiated. The proposals received formal approval in December 2022 and looked to finally set into motion a firm plan to bring Villa Park into the 21st century.

Alas, nothing can be considered certain in football. With a shake-up of senior management during the summer of 2023 saw Christian Purslow depart, and with it came an abrupt change in direction in the form of Chris Heck.

Within just 9 months of the regeneration being approved, rumours of scaled-back ambitions were confirmed as planning revisions were submitted in September 2023. Heck recently remarked that he had taken 6 months to learn the club. Yet the emergency brake on this project appears to have been reached for from the outset. This isn’t the time to mention the badge debacle either…

The writing was on the wall for the project as prominent features such as a purpose-built box park replica, ‘Villa Live’, were downgraded to a less inspiring (and cheaper) beer and benches affair. The whispers were rife that the strategy in place was under close scrutiny.

Then, as if charged with delivering bad news before Christmas, Heck confirmed in typical corporate double-speak that the redevelopment plans were on ‘pause’. The reasons, cited in a brief AVTV piece to camera included concerns about reducing the stadium’s capacity for 2 full seasons and the lack of adequate public transport improvements to support the final capacity.

The latter caught diminutive local Mayor Andy Street off guard, especially given that the West Midlands Combined Authority has committed to improving Witton Station in anticipation of Villa’s ground hosting Euro 2028 matches. Heck though, simply expressed his view that the redevelopment plan for Villa Park was a ‘bad idea’.

As it turns out, the rationale for this strategic U-turn doesn’t appear quite as clear-cut or at least consistent in its reasoning as you might expect. The Fan Advisory Group and local press have reported that the change of heart is due to “spiralling costs and transport issues”. There are contradictory messages now in the public domain with ‘strong’ indications that the North Stand will not be replaced at all, with the club instead increasing the capacity by 2000-3000 seats by filling in the sides of the existing stands.

In a somewhat hilarious Boris Johnson-esque case of miss-speaking, it was also suggested by the club that there wasn’t demand for tickets to warrant expanding to 50,000. The evidence? 200 or so unsold tickets for home games.

There is though a comical flaw in this thinking, not least the club’s own reported 24,000-30,000 season ticket waiting list. Principally, it is that these 200 tickets are exactly the amount the commercial department is routinely failing to sell for its underperforming “premium” matchday experiences introduced just this season. Whoops.

All this sits in stark contrast to Villa’s on-field improvement. That improvement has been one of largely careful, incremental gains, stewarded by the club’s current owners. Our on-field strategy, like that off the pitch hasn’t always been well executed. For every Unai Emery there is a Steven Gerrard. For every bargain McGinn there is a costly Coutinho. For every Purslow there is a Wyness or indeed, a Heck. No-ones perfect.

This is not simply a case of shouting loudly for the best and to have it immediately either. Villa has attained the highest accolades in the game, but as a fanbase, we are far from spoiled or by any means used to periods of success. What we are not is custodians, who can change our allegiances on a whim. We are the generational watchers over time to whom the standard of our ground is representative and part of what represents us as a football club.

Abandoning plans to radically improve Villa Park is for this reason incredibly short-sighted. It’s an opportunity to make a tangible statement that the football club is single-minded and sincere about its vision to compete at the very top of the elite level of the game. Serious outfits have serious stadia.

There is of course an elephant in the room on this topic and it’s one which is as divisive or taboo as having a relative from the Blue side of the city.

The notion of leaving Villa Park is in some ways unfathomable. Family traditions and ties to a defined area across generations would be cut. A direct link to a pitch that has seen the ups and downs of Aston Villa for over a century. A golden thread would be severed.

However, as unfathomable as it might be emotionally, practically and commercially it is not inconceivable. The suggestion that this would be well received by supporters would render this piece deluded. To suggest that it would not be considered by the club, no matter how remote, would be equally so. The club may say that it is not a consideration, but this might be something that in time becomes increasingly harder to believe.

If you had baulked at the cost of redeveloping a mere 25% of the ground and were concerned with immovable barriers such as finite transport infrastructure, what might your next move be? Only time will tell.

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