Torquay United Fans Forum

The site around the Willows is surely in the totally wrong place?

Not only is it built on a tip (hugely expensive to rectify) but it is on the wrong side of the Penn Inn. In their wisdom the planners gave us one lane each way. It often operates towards its full capacity. How will 30000 people get through it for a timed event then return 3 or 4 hours later?

Also, I am sure the local residents around the Nightingales would far rather have the nature park they have on their doorstep rather than a huge noisy floodlit venue with insufferable traffic problems? They would fight it tooth and nail.

Plainmoor is an excellent stadium for a club much bigger than Torquay. Why is that people want to move somewhere where the new venue would be multi use and over which they will exert no control?

Two points.

Firstly surely this is the site of the old tip? As Teignbridge council found with the broad meadow sports site in teignmouth the cost is prohibitive of cleaning up which is why they eventually had to build sports pitches on greenfield land that became available next to the new morrisons whilst the rest of the site was paid for by industrial development.

Secondly Torquay is on the wrong side of penn inn to be able to cope with 30000 fans flooding in to an event.

The expressway is only one lane either way at the penn inn and whilst it copes there is very little capacity at peak times and traffic readily builds up. 30000 additional users ? I don't see how.

Thirdly plainmoor is surely a pretty good venue. It is a dedicated football stadium and belongs to the club. Elsewhere the club would be one of a number of users and 2000 fans would rattle around in it.

Shouldn't you be trying to secure plainmoor? Isn't the nightingales a bit of a red herring?