London Irish
Well-known member
Obviously we won't need it tonight with the poor Plymouth away support but Coventry would certainly have filled a new away stand on Saturday.
I am struck by how this issue has got lost, understandably, amid all the Falmer deliberations.
All the back issues of Tim Carder's brilliant Albion Almanac dropped through my door recently and the first entry on the February edition was this:
"In the February edition of City News, the newspaper of Brighton & Hove City Council, Cllr Brian Pidgeon (Con, Patcham) is reported as "leading the fight against plans to create another park-and-ride site for Withdean Stadium by closing off part of Carden Avenue". He comments: "This is a most ill-thought out plan. People would be trapped in their homes. I am hapy for the Albion to build a stadium at Falmer but this proposed park-and-ride would affect everyone in our local community."
It's hard to conclude otherwise that this Nimby has won a victory over us in alliance with all the original objectors like Asda.
I'm genuinely intrigued at how this has happened.
Was this Carden Avenue park-and-ride scheme so flawed? It's just hard for me to take the claims of Nimbys that seriously after what they said about Preston Park Station being the next King's Cross disaster etc.
The politics of this interests me. As Lord Bracknell has indicated a few times on here, was the change of the council from Labour to "No Overall Control" a year ago a massive blow to us in getting planning decisions through the council that are favourable to us?
The fact is, this Tory Pidgeon now has a potential Nimby majority on the council to stop Labour pushing the Carden Avenue scheme through. The Tory councillors who "represent" me fought tooth and nail to stop Albion playing at Withdean and it seems to me that they and Pidgeon would get the Tory group's support. The Greens are bloody useless on any Albion issue and that just leaves the Liberal Democrats who seem to me the first to sign up to any Nimby protest going. That's an alliance that can outvote all the pro-Albion Labour councillors on Brighton and Hove Council.
It's all very sad. I am very thankful that the council was still solidly Labour in 1998-9, otherwise would the council have had the political will to face down the Tories and the SWEAT campaigners?
I can't help feeling Albion fans missed a trick a year ago by not turning out more solidly to ensure a Labour majority on the council. The first consequence of this has been that Bodfish and Co. now need the support of other political groups to push controversial planning proposals through. Maybe they don't want to disrupt the (mostly) cross-party unity behind Falmer to push other Albion plans that would create big divisions.
The reality of it is, I think the Labour group have now been forced to abandon the Carden Avenue plan. Where the Tories and SWEAT lost in 1998-9, the Tories and the likes of Asda have won in 2004.
While the Carden Avenue plan is not perfect, there appears to be no obvious alternative to it within the Brighton and Hove area (sound a familar problem?). There is a clear danger that we could be stuck with the lower revenues from a 7k stadium for years to come now until Falmer.
The moral of the story is, if you are an Albion fan, think carefully before you use your vote in local elections in future!
I am struck by how this issue has got lost, understandably, amid all the Falmer deliberations.
All the back issues of Tim Carder's brilliant Albion Almanac dropped through my door recently and the first entry on the February edition was this:
"In the February edition of City News, the newspaper of Brighton & Hove City Council, Cllr Brian Pidgeon (Con, Patcham) is reported as "leading the fight against plans to create another park-and-ride site for Withdean Stadium by closing off part of Carden Avenue". He comments: "This is a most ill-thought out plan. People would be trapped in their homes. I am hapy for the Albion to build a stadium at Falmer but this proposed park-and-ride would affect everyone in our local community."
It's hard to conclude otherwise that this Nimby has won a victory over us in alliance with all the original objectors like Asda.
I'm genuinely intrigued at how this has happened.
Was this Carden Avenue park-and-ride scheme so flawed? It's just hard for me to take the claims of Nimbys that seriously after what they said about Preston Park Station being the next King's Cross disaster etc.
The politics of this interests me. As Lord Bracknell has indicated a few times on here, was the change of the council from Labour to "No Overall Control" a year ago a massive blow to us in getting planning decisions through the council that are favourable to us?
The fact is, this Tory Pidgeon now has a potential Nimby majority on the council to stop Labour pushing the Carden Avenue scheme through. The Tory councillors who "represent" me fought tooth and nail to stop Albion playing at Withdean and it seems to me that they and Pidgeon would get the Tory group's support. The Greens are bloody useless on any Albion issue and that just leaves the Liberal Democrats who seem to me the first to sign up to any Nimby protest going. That's an alliance that can outvote all the pro-Albion Labour councillors on Brighton and Hove Council.
It's all very sad. I am very thankful that the council was still solidly Labour in 1998-9, otherwise would the council have had the political will to face down the Tories and the SWEAT campaigners?
I can't help feeling Albion fans missed a trick a year ago by not turning out more solidly to ensure a Labour majority on the council. The first consequence of this has been that Bodfish and Co. now need the support of other political groups to push controversial planning proposals through. Maybe they don't want to disrupt the (mostly) cross-party unity behind Falmer to push other Albion plans that would create big divisions.
The reality of it is, I think the Labour group have now been forced to abandon the Carden Avenue plan. Where the Tories and SWEAT lost in 1998-9, the Tories and the likes of Asda have won in 2004.
While the Carden Avenue plan is not perfect, there appears to be no obvious alternative to it within the Brighton and Hove area (sound a familar problem?). There is a clear danger that we could be stuck with the lower revenues from a 7k stadium for years to come now until Falmer.
The moral of the story is, if you are an Albion fan, think carefully before you use your vote in local elections in future!
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