PMG wrote:If you look on google earth
You can easily fit a new stadium on there
How much room do you think you need ?
The rugby pitch is very long with space behind each goal line it’s huge
I guess if you don’t think it’s a good idea then you can come up with as many negatives as you like
The question is if it fits is it a good idea or not

Love my home town as I do there is sadly a Newport attitude of telling you why something can't be done rather than trying to work out how something can be done. Until we over come that attitude we will always be losers. Whether your idea is good or not I don't know. What I do know is we need a bloody sight more people with your attitude.

Well if you work on the basis that you need the same size footprint as the current stadium, there isn't enough room on the cabbage patch. The extra length of the rugby pitch is irrelevant, it's extra width that's needed. Just imagine walking from the ticket office to the turnstiles. All the way along, the space is getting wider. By the time you get to the back of the North terrace it's wide enough, but most of it up to that point is too narrow.

Edit: come to think of it, even when you get to the turnstiles, the Bisley and Hazell stands both extend outside the width of the point where you enter the ground.

I think you’re wrong there is easily enough room
But if it doesn’t fit it doesn’t fit but worth doing some feasibility study ,,,,,
Like measuring the width,the length is not a problem,
So like I said if it fits is it a good idea, ???
The location is perfect
They already have planning to build a massive stand at the north terrace
The council want us to stay in the town centre as it brings revenue on match days
Dragons would benefit from all the football funding we would bring in,
It solves the pitch issue,
We provide the funding they gift us the land
Like I said before the squash club get a new facility they would be onboard,
The rugby get new changing rooms
And we get a long pepper corn lease,
It just needs the right attitude
And some forward thinking minds
We were told we couldn’t put stands up at spytty but they did
They said we couldn’t move to RP
But we did
Where there a will there’s a way
Like the other post pointed out Newport people would rather find ten reasons not to do something
Than the one reason to get it done and find a solution,
It’s worth a look at surely ???

PMG wrote:If you look on google earth
You can easily fit a new stadium on there
How much room do you think you need ?
The rugby pitch is very long with space behind each goal line it’s huge
I guess if you don’t think it’s a good idea then you can come up with as many negatives as you like
The question is if it fits is it a good idea or not

I’m not an architect but we mustn’t fall into the idea that the stadium terracing must be square at the back ends.

Look at the old Vetch and Bournemouth old ground (I think). Those grounds had a road taking off part of the back of stand on one side of the ground. I think we need expert opinion as to whether it is a goer on the cabbage patch.

County-at-the-races wrote:

PMG wrote:My idea for a new ground would be to build a community stadium,
We could get funding just like other teams have done
The venue ?
Well the best place for all concerned would be on the cabbage patch,
Knock down the north terrace and have joint changing rooms under a new stand which by the way has a current planning consent just needs to be tweaked
Which serves the rugby pitch and the new pitch,
A new stadium would easily fit into the old cabbage patch
Build a new block under the the stand to accommodate the squash club
Turn the old RP rugby pitch into 3-4 G and we have a new pitch and stadium they have their old stadium back,
Plenty of scope to knock down the old condemned Hazell terrace,redevelop all of the site
We put in funding and end up with the perfect scenario
Any thought
Any downside
Any objections
Needs someone to put it all together,
We have some money
We would get plenty of community funding

How much do you think that would cost?
20 odd years ago the calculation was £1m per 1000 capacity, so at a guess that we wouldn't be happy unless we had an 8,000 capacity, and therefore we need £8m at a minimum.
We won't be getting that out of the City Council, FAW, FL for sure

Couple of questions come to mind:-

1. What would be the ideal capacity at the building stage of the cabbage patch, with a possible upgrade to x thousand?
2. Oxford United have stands on three sides of their pitch, is this a possibility on the cabbage patch? (whatever the pitch configuration, north/south, etc) Or even two sides with big stands and a smaller/temporary stand behind a goal for away fans?
3. How much depth is needed for a stand, say on Rodney Road, Grafton Road or Beresford Road? Hereford have a stand running along the length of the pitch on Edgar Street, opposite the main stand, that is vertical. Liverpool have developed their stand by building a tier above an existing structure.
4. Someone mentioned a kink in the road behind the Hazel, there's also one on Grafton Road. Couldn't roads be tweaked when the ground is redeveloped?
5. Wasn't the old bowls club bought for redevelopment of the cabbage patch?
6. What are minimum, and maximum, dimensions of both football & rugby pitches?

If 'we' can make it work, I think it would be superb.
As I am too lazy to look it up, which pitch requires the biggest minimum dimensions? What I am thinking is that if football needs to be bigger, then maybe let County have the existing pitch and the Dragons and Newport RFC get the new pitch. Just a thought.
Either way, it is vital we stay in the city centre.

Ian Pope wrote:If 'we' can make it work, I think it would be superb.
As I am too lazy to look it up, which pitch requires the biggest minimum dimensions? What I am thinking is that if football needs to be bigger, then maybe let County have the existing pitch and the Dragons and Newport RFC get the new pitch. Just a thought.
Either way, it is vital we stay in the city centre.

The cabbage patch could be converted into a 3G pitch for Newport rugby. The requirements for a semi-pro rugby team are not as stringent and a lower-state stadium could fit there nicely. This would leave the actual stadium for Dragons and County.

A North Stand structure could also host both stadiums and the squash club?

Three, or more, teams playing on the pitch would not be an issue if a modular pitch system were utilised, with lighting to maintain grass growth during winter months

Not tats the attitude let’s find a way to make it work
Our advantage as a football club is community funding,football foundation funding and premier Leauge funding, we can give the dragons a golden ticket and it return we get a ground share that has equal status,whether it’s Newport rugby on the cabbage patch or whether we go on there,if we try hard enough there is a solution,
If we have enough like minded people we will get there

The cabbage patch is no use whatsoever to us in playing terms EXCEPT as a possible solution to the three-club problem. The aerial view shows you could just about fit in a pitch as long as the accommodation along both sides amounted to not much more than a rail and hard standing, which is no good for us - but Newport AFC only need to accommodate a few hundred. Then you could have an Arms Park-style two-sided stand where the current North Terrace sits.

George Street-Bridge wrote:The cabbage patch is no use whatsoever to us in playing terms EXCEPT as a possible solution to the three-club problem. The aerial view shows you could just about fit in a pitch as long as the accommodation along both sides amounted to not much more than a rail and hard standing, which is no good for us - but Newport AFC only need to accommodate a few hundred. Then you could have an Arms Park-style two-sided stand where the current North Terrace sits.

Not sure a double-sided stand would be required to accommodate the couple of hundred RFC fans : wouldn’t there be enough room at the sides and other end? Then the back of the new development at the North terrace end would be able to accommodate retail like club shop, ticketing and food outlets to make it more viable.

The cabbage patch isn't big enough to build a new stadium on - the footprint is slightly narrower than the stadium itself - however, you could probably host a full sized grass pitch on a tray that slides in and out of the stadium above a plastic pitch on the stadium site that could be used the rest of the time, allowing for concerts, use as a community facility generating revenue during the week, etc. The grass can still be grown and tended as normal outside the stadium, and covered of course.

If capacity was an issue, there's a ton of space behind the North Stand which could be built backwards and higher (it would have to be anyway to accommodate the tray mechanism). You could also put a proper bar in instead of the marquee.

There are plenty of stadiums already using this kind of multipurpose dual surface - the question would be if that mechanism and rebuilding would cost more than just building something from scratch. If AFC Wimbledon can do it, we can do it. With an appropriate site...

Doing a bit of image manipulation based on Google Maps, I reckon you could flip the stands to opposite side of the ground and fit Exeter's ground into the area behind the North Stand. The Home end would be behind the North Stand, the new stand would back onto Rodney Road (where the squash club currently sits), the older stand would back onto Beresford Road with the away end in front of where the derelict clubhouse is. The size and shape of their ground is very similar to that of the cabbage and surrounding space.

Thing is, why would a club want to build a new ground on a barely suitable site?

Jokes about the Sainsbury's site but a bit of an overhang into the Usk (Fulham style) and it's big enough - or the awful labyrinth of roads into the centre from Malpas Road/Heidenheim Drive centre could be shifted westwards a bit and then there's enough room too. You only need one road into the centre and if you want to go up to Old Green stick a slip road nearer the Old Green rather than at the Old Rising Sun/Harlequin roundabout. They could rebuild the Old Green underpass that floods every other week in winter then too.

Failing that, Shaftesbury Park isn't doing much...

Oh, and if you're going to faff with Google Maps, you need to take some cut and paste screenshots of scale - I did that a couple of years ago and decided moving the school to the cabbage patch, buying the old Newport Transport Depot and turning the pitch was the way to go..

If you can fit a league 2 sized football ground in there, you can surely fit a semi-pro rugby ground as well.
Although it has been said that developing that part of the site is the way to make the Dragons financially viable.