All Things Bennetts Field Car Park - including club statement (merged threads)

[Herr Tubthumper]

Reading the article it sounds like a bit of both.

The traffic lights will be turned off and the police will manually control the traffic at the junction.
Anyone found to be abusing stewards and or trying to jump the queue will lose their parking privileges.

Please let this be the end of this sorry saga.

I think there does need to be some measures taken to stop impatient aggressive drivers bullying their way to the car park exit. I also think some minor improvement/tweaks can be made to the flow of cars leaving. Otherwise I think users of the car park just have to chill out and accept it will take time. Why is everyone in such a rush to get home? All you have to do is clear an extra hour or so in your Saturday tea time diary. There is no need to run, you can walk.

 

[Rugrat]

Left dead on final whistle Saturday. We walked briskly to park n ride, and home by 5:18.
Colleagues did same from WSL, home in Hove by 5:30.
Doncaster, saw Buckley's winner & celebrations. Home by 5:30.

Park n ride working well. Fact.

Can't argue with facts ... note to self "get a new watch"

 

[Lord Bracknell]

Thinking about it after away games, the police escorts the away fans coaches & minibuses out of town, normally all routes cleared for a speedy route onto the motorway etc, think Stoke last year, all our coaches and minibuses were out of the stadium, down the dual carraigeway and onto the motorway with no stops at all. If they can effect something like that, ie overide/block the traffic lights, clear the routes out to the access to the A27, even for short bursts, it will let loads of cars get out of the site and away, in a far quicker way than the current free for all.

When the Club's transport consultants did their traffic flow predictions (as part of the planning application for Bennetts Field), they predicted congestion problems at the right turn that takes traffic down on to the Brighton-bound carriageway of the A27. The solution that was decided upon was to slow down the egress from Bennetts Field. It will be interesting to see if this new problem materialises on Saturday. If it does, traffic will back up to the Village Way junction, and no amount of traffic control by the police at that junction will clear it.

 

[DT Withdean]

Can't argue with facts ... note to self "get a new watch"

Plenty home early.

Note to Whinger:
Relax about Club's transport arrangements; or
Get cardio-vascular system working to make one of the first buses, so you too can get home early.

 

[Westdene Seagull]

It does seem though that the balance is hugely wrong at the moment though as there appears little traffic on that road. Certainly not at nearly midnight!!

I doubt very much indeed that they will re-phase the re-phase if a match goes to extra time and possibly penalties ! There will be a standard re-phase based on a match finishing about 9.30.

 

[Westdene Seagull]

Would it be cynical to suggest that the club aren't taking it seriously because they think they've got the 1901'ers by the balls for five years? Maybe needs a poll to ask 1901ers how many would be happy to renew given the current setup. I suspect the results would be a massive embarrassment to the club - as well as being a major threat to the bottom line.

I really don't believe that any 1901ers will give up their match ticket for the parking issue. People that paid to park might have second thoughts about paying for parking but given the great public transport only an idiot would not renew a season ticket based on near stadium parking issues.

 

[Superphil]

I remember a fans united game or maybe the Zamora hat-trick game at Chester City when there were only a few thousand in their tiny stadium. It still took almost an hour to get away from the industrial estate it was on.

This with a thousand bells on it, FFS, it is chaos getting out of more grounds than it is not, it's a fact of life. I have a colleague who is a STH at Old Trafford, the concensus he has is that he doesn't want the stadium extended any further as it takes them between 1.5 and 2.5 hours to get away from the stadium for every game. And I don't think there is anywhere round there you can go for a drink after. Bennetts Filed wil limprove, as will all the transport arrangements, the club could do with reassuring all of us that they are working on it though.

 

[Superphil]

When the Club's transport consultants did their traffic flow predictions (as part of the planning application for Bennetts Field), they predicted congestion problems at the right turn that takes traffic down on to the Brighton-bound carriageway of the A27. The solution that was decided upon was to slow down the egress from Bennetts Field. It will be interesting to see if this new problem materialises on Saturday. If it does, traffic will back up to the Village Way junction, and no amount of traffic control by the police at that junction will clear it.

Let's hope they have some decent ideas. Fact of life if you are near any other (largeish) stadium, there is a period after matched when roads are closed off to allow a convoy of buses/coaches away. If they blocked the traffic lights off, and coralled the cars out of Bennetts Field, they must be able to get more than 10 cars a minute out and onto the A27. Hopefully, if the Police are instructed to organise this, they will do it their way, and actually do it properly, they are trained in such tasks and do it all the time at other events across the county.

 

[Giraffe]

Let's hope they have some decent ideas. Fact of life if you are near any other (largeish) stadium, there is a period after matched when roads are closed off to allow a convoy of buses/coaches away. If they blocked the traffic lights off, and coralled the cars out of Bennetts Field, they must be able to get more than 10 cars a minute out and onto the A27. Hopefully, if the Police are instructed to organise this, they will do it their way, and actually do it properly, they are trained in such tasks and do it all the time at other events across the county.

I am now placing my trust in the police. It's an uneasy feeling. I hope it is a case of trying to dela with the problem of being stuck in the car park rather than dealing with the problem of civil unrest!!!

 

[Superphil]

I have trusted the Police all my life, this is not a case of trusting them, this is a case of them doing what they should have been asked to do all along.

 

[Giraffe]

I have trusted the Police all my life, this is not a case of trusting them, this is a case of them doing what they should have been asked to do all along.

I'm not sure really. Where does the police/club cut off occur? I guess it's through club/police agreement but on the face of it it's not police's job to steward a club car park.

Although I guess the traffic management at the lights probably is?

 

[Superphil]

That's what I meant, the stewards appear to have little or no experience of road traffic control, and I guess they also have no authority regarding the lights. The Police will be able to overide the lights, block off the road etc, so fingers crossed. The stewards need to make it easy for cars to get out of the car park, by not getting in the way, and maybe by doing some stewarding in the car park.

 

[Weststander]

The Police have had problems in Village Way with (despite the Club advising people not to do this), many collecting family and performing U-turns. Those cars then take priority as they are already on the road, compared the 1,000's trying to leave by park n ride or from Bennetts.

Along with other changes, perhaps a Police clampdown on this & tougher waiting restrictions there, will help all get out.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

I have trusted the Police all my life

Have you ever lived in London?

 

[Alex Alex Dawson oo! oo!]

Have you ever lived in London?

Quite.

 

[Superphil]

Have you ever lived in London?

Quite.

OK, so I have bitten, what the f*** has that got to do with anything? I have a number of friends who do, and they have never had issue to distrust the Police.

I personally have never had any cause, ever, to distrust the Police. Dislike their actions on occasion maybe, get pissed off with them at football matches when they round us up and frogmarch us maybe. I was once arrested for being persistantly refusing to do what I was told at a protest, but I knew the risks, they dealt with me firmly, put the fear of God into me, and that certainly made me think twice before behaving like that again. I am firmly in the camp that the Police, 99% of the time, are serving us, the British public, as they are paid to do. The minority of bad apples is evident in all walks of life, and so far none of them in the Police force have ever crossed my path thank goodness.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

OK, so I have bitten, what the f*** has that got to do with anything? I have a number of friends who do, and they have never had issue to distrust the Police.

I personally have never had any cause, ever, to distrust the Police. Dislike their actions on occasion maybe, get pissed off with them at football matches when they round us up and frogmarch us maybe. I was once arrested for being persistantly refusing to do what I was told at a protest, but I knew the risks, they dealt with me firmly, put the fear of God into me, and that certainly made me think twice before behaving like that again. I am firmly in the camp that the Police, 99% of the time, are serving us, the British public, as they are paid to do. The minority of bad apples is evident in all walks of life, and so far none of them in the Police force have ever crossed my path thank goodness.

In my opinion the Met are a different breed. The seperate training academy seems to breed arrogance in them.

 

[Weststander]

OK, so I have bitten, what the f*** has that got to do with anything? I have a number of friends who do, and they have never had issue to distrust the Police.

I personally have never had any cause, ever, to distrust the Police. Dislike their actions on occasion maybe, get pissed off with them at football matches when they round us up and frogmarch us maybe. I was once arrested for being persistantly refusing to do what I was told at a protest, but I knew the risks, they dealt with me firmly, put the fear of God into me, and that certainly made me think twice before behaving like that again. I am firmly in the camp that the Police, 99% of the time, are serving us, the British public, as they are paid to do. The minority of bad apples is evident in all walks of life, and so far none of them in the Police force have ever crossed my path thank goodness.

Well said. We saw earlier this month what UK life could be like where they don't have control.
The vast majority of us are behind of them. If you lead a law abidding life, you have no reason to cross them.

 

[skipper734]

Before the makers of brightly coloured jackets had lobbied public entertainment and football clubs to let them loose on creating many of the problems associated with such events, public order was controlled by half a dozen Police Constables and in extreme cases a couple on horse back.

At the Goldstone, the Police complete with white helmets, stopped the traffic in the Old Shoreham Road to allow folk to climb aboard their charabancs for the trip home, and the greater part of the crowd who were on foot, to cross the road.

So to sum up... More stewards more chaos, less police less chaos. QED.

Oh! and anyone who has parked in Bournmouth's car park ( £2.40) for 4 hours, probably appreciates Bennets Field as being quite easy to emerge from on the same day.

 

[Giraffe]

I do respect and trust the police very much. My point about the stewarding is nothing to do with the police, more it seems a little strange that police will steward the car park. But I've not read the article so perhaps that's not quite what they're saying.