You’re apparently now allowed to operate a stadium with safe standing seats/rails in place for extra safety in areas with more persistent standing.
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Bristol City fans has welcomed the news that safe standing has been given the green light.
The government’s Sports Ground Safety Authority this week confirmed the use of special stadium seats that incorporate barriers to keep livelier fans safe while attending matches.
Such seating would help prevent supporters from falling over the seat in front when wildly celebrating or such if persistently standing.
A major update of the official stadium safety guidelines for England and Wales, the first for 10 years, now provides football clubs like
Bristol City with advice on enhancing the safety of spectators in areas of seating occupied by their more vibrant fans.
The Robins are required by law to operate an all-seater stadium but the new guidelines suggest that clubs should consider installing what are being termed ‘seats incorporating barriers’ (also known as ‘rail seats’) as added safety measures in such areas.
The
Bristol City Supporters Club & Trust has exclusively revealed to
BristolLive the images of how it would like to see such seating used at Ashton Gate.
“We all know that the Section 82 group and many other fans in the southeast corner of Ashton Gate like to sing and chant for 90 minutes and spend a good deal of the match on their feet.
"That, we feel, would therefore be the first place to enhance spectator safety in this way,” says Supporters Club & Trust board member Jon Darch, who has also been heavily involved over the last decade in the national campaign for the introduction of such seating.
“In due course, when the all-seater policy is revoked, as now seems almost inevitable, that section would thus also be ready to be formally operated as a standing area.
"If the demand was then there for a larger standing area, our suggestion, if the fans currently holding season tickets there were amenable to it, would be to expand it across the back of the South Stand, as we show in our images“, added Darch.