In March we reported that Ecoworld, the developers who bought Griffin Park from the club, were planning less commemoration of the history of the site than originally set out in their planning application. They were preparing a new application for a ‘community park at the heart of the development’. BIAS, who had been on an earlier fans zoom meeting with Ecoworld about the new plan, followed up with detailed feedback setting out their concerns. They called for a further zoom meeting and this has now been held with BIAS, BU and the club all represented. Chris Tate represented Bees United.
The BU view is that the meeting was encouraging. The revised scheme will incorporate a much larger park, the focal point of which will be an area called the Hive which will be an area of seating around the location of the old centre circle with potentially a water feature to include a mosaic bee or of the club badge. Plaques and an information board will also be erected in this area to record all iterations of the club badge and a brief potted history of our successes and achievements. EcoWorld foresee this area of the development as somewhere fans will be able to visit to remember GP. There’ll also be a plaque to commemorate the 100’s of people whose ashes have been scattered there. 7 turnstiles have been retained and along with some of the crash barriers, it is intended to incorporate these within the development, perhaps at the pedestrian entrances or as part of cycle calming at the end of the shared cycle/doorways. There will also be a commemorative structure of some kind in each of the four floodlight positions and subject to Council stipulations, the road and apartment blocks will likely carry BFC related names. As regards timings, the revised application is due to be submitted within the next couple of weeks with a decision expected by the end of the year and a provisional start on site date in February.
Meanwhile the demolition of Griffin Park continues. Some fans have said they have trouble looking at the pictures of the stands being taken down but for those who can cope Sky Sports produced a very good video report . This was one striking image in the video, the tearing down of the top of the Braemar Road stand.
Access was given to Sky partly in response to some strange events which are best chronicled in a statement from EcoWorld earlier in May:
‘EcoWorld London recently became aware that some Brentford fans have been given private tours of the site by the demolition contractors, Northeast Demolition Ltd. Some fans subsequently posted about this on social media. A Brentford FC supporter group that we are in contact with raised this with EcoWorld London, who were unaware that the tours were taking place. We immediately asked Northeast Demolition to stop these tours as they potentially pose health and safety concerns.Since taking ownership of the site EcoWorld London have continuously worked with Brentford FC to ensure parts of the stadium of significant heritage will be saved during the demolition and given over to the club to either form part of a future exhibition or to be auctioned for charity.Over the coming weeks, EcoWorld London will be donating a large number of seats at Griffin Park to lower league football clubs. This will ensure that the seats continue their life benefiting football and football fans for years to come’.
Some of the seats donated by the club and by EcoWorld are now visible at non-league teams around England. The Chairman of Hallen FC said thanks in a report on Sky Sports
Petersfield Town posted this on a Brentford Facebook page:
A week later Barry O’Neill followed up with this:
As part of their enragement with local communities EcoWorld have sent out their own newsletter, here’s an extract.
Bees United will keep you up to date with developments.