Your plans made more sense, Daren, but what to do now?
Interesting synopsis by Daren.
What to do now? Hmm.....
Let's look at the facts:
ECCC's HQ ground is unfit for purpose.
Is the current site able to be redeveloped? - Not if the people who manage and administer the Club and appear to stick rigidly to the world view and (in)actions of their predecessors - sometimes known as the Essex Way - I'd call it
The do nothing policy of No Change Essex.
The Club belatedly decided to attempt a plan to redevelop the County Ground at the time of a World economic crisis - however, the plan was unworkable irrespectively and would therefore have not been delivered in any economic era. The Club's members chose to not challenge the Club in sufficient number over this matter - and the consequence is the debate now - ongoing fifteen years' later.
To progress this, what redevelopment (not relocating to a new HQ: Hants, Durham) has taken place at non Test Match stadia in the UK in the past thirty years?
Developments have generally translated as piecemeal development, predicated on corporate hospitality. County Cricket clubs are not wealthy in this category. The only example of a significant and transformative redevelopment of scale has been the transformation that Somerset have delivered at Taunton.
That appears to be the template to follow,
if Essex are planning to remain at the current site. Taunton is every bit as constrained a site as Chelmsford and shares other similarities such as a town centre location, which most ECCC members and supporters seem to enjoy as a setting. Unlike Essex, who doubled down and bragged endlessly, didn't listen to any different opinions - par for the course! Then became defensive and employed ridiculous boosterism when they perhaps should have come clean when presented with the reality that their 'redevelopment' project was a non-starter.
My view is and has always been that the site is too restricted, and although the general facilities could be significantly improved, the footprint is not capable of increasing the capacity to any real tangible degree. What do ECCC's stakeholders want? A big increase in capacity or just a modern stadium that enhances the experience of going to a game, whether watching, playing or corporate. You could achieve the latter, but the former ....?
A modern version of the Riverside and Tom Pearce stands, that would sweep around to the scoreboard, but without the supporting uprights of the existing structures, could be a good starting point to a phased redevelopment.
Unfortunately, poor decision making, failing to listen or engage and inaction, notwithstanding the '90s con man, mean the only tangible areas for expansion; the old hospital side land and the club car park are no longer options.
So, the only realistic scenario is a new out of town HQ, but without backing and with the existing mindset that has beset ECCC for a generation, that is currently unlikely. Maybe that is a good thing....
