Progress being made on Villa Park expansion plans
Villa hope to submit plans for the expansion of Villa Park within the next month, chief executive Christian Purslow has confirmed.
The iconic stadium currently has a capacity of 42,785 – with that figure allowing the club to sell 29,000 season tickets each year.
But there are an extra 20,000 Villa supporters on a waiting list for a season ticket – and Purslow says that demand has created the ‘perfect backdrop’ for an expansion.
The CEO didn’t reveal how many seats will be added – but he hinted the capacity could rise to 50,000.
“We are making really good progress on developing the preliminary designs and a vision for how to do three things in respect of Villa Park,” Purslow said
“The first is to try and increase capacity and that is because we have 20,000 fans now on our waiting list for season ticket, which is an absolutely remarkable figure.
“The fact 20,000 people can’t get season tickets when they want them is a perfect backdrop to try and increase the size of our stadium.
“A good chunk of those people would like to have hospitality rather than pure general admission tickets, so the second element of improving and redeveloping Villa Park is to find ways to grow the component of our capacity where we provide hospitality.
“And then the third element is to transform our commercial space.
“Those three elements; capacity, hospitality, commercial activities, form part of our vision for redevelopment of Villa Park.
“We’re making good progress, I’m hoping to be able to apply for planning consent in the next month or so for some or all of those ideas.”
