Nottingham Forest have now gained their Nottinghamshire County Council safety certificate for the coming 2016/17 Championship campaign – but the City Ground capacity has been reduced by 20%.
With Forest not having the necessary named safety certificate holder, a safety certificate couldn’t be granted in the recent annual inspection, and the capacity had been reduced to zero in light of that only a few weeks ago.
Nottinghamshire County Council official Robert Fisher has confirmed that the formalities have been dealt with, and that the Council have granted the paperwork ahead of the campaign but as things stand we can now only house 24,357 people – a reduction of 6088.
The BBC quote Fisher as saying.
‘We are pleased that Nottingham Forest has now put forward a suitable person to take on the crucial role of safety certificate holder. However, the council and our Safety Advisory Group partners need to be confident that the club is fully supporting the certificate holder to fulfil their role and unfortunately a number of concerns remain.’
Fisher went on to say.
‘We require evidence to demonstrate that safety matters are discussed in senior management meetings at the club. We also await an action plan for improvements to the facilities for visiting disabled spectators and an up-to-date written safety policy outlining roles at the club. As a consequence of this, a restriction on spectator capacity is required until these issues are resolved. The council is continuing to work closely with the club to see that an appropriate action plan is carried out to address remaining issues, so we are able to restore the club’s previous full capacity status over the coming weeks.’
A statement from Forest read.
‘The club will continue to work in partnership with the council in order to address the outstanding issues to ensure that the safety factor is restored to full capacity as quickly as possible.’
The BBC point out that attendances broke the 24,357 mark three times last season, Derby County in November (25,114), Leeds United in December (27,551) and the FA Cup fourth-round tie with Watford (24,703). With potential takeovers, new hope under Philippe Montanier and an increase in Midlands based derby games, hopefully attendances over that mark (in a better season) will be far more regular.
At least there’s been progress, hopefully there can be quicker progress on full capacity being restored now – it does however mean there are no concerns over the Hull game going ahead as planned.
