Over the course of the last 12 months, supporters have asked the club to consider rail seating here at the Banks’s Stadium.
This has been discussed at Fan’s Focus Meeting and the monthly working party meeting.
At the request of Supporters, we have explored the possibility of introducing rail seating on the back five rows of the HomeServe Lower Tier and consulted with the Local Authority and Sports Ground Safety Authority whilst looking into the financial implications for the installation of rail seating.
In order to formally gauge the actual appetite for rail seating, we conducted a survey amongst supporters in this area of the Stadium to find out whether it is something they would like introduced and, if so, if they would be willing to make a one-off contribution towards.
Of the 551 season ticket holders who sit in the proposed area, a total of 87 took part in the survey.
Overall, 54.65% of those who responded to the survey said they would like to see rail seating introduced while 45.35% were against the idea.
We then asked supporters if they would be willing to make a one-off contribution of £75 to change their seat to which 80% said they would not be prepared to make a one-off contribution compared to 20% who were willing to.
As a result, we do not feel that this is something we can progress at the present time. We will continue to keep this on our agenda and we will continue discussions with supporter groups, the local authority and SGSA.