The unofficial AFC Rushden & Diamonds messageboard

As you may be aware, the plot of land north of the Dog and Duck is currently being developed as a small retail park.

Work has started on this in the past few weeks, and the first phase has been to remove the side fence at the Dog and Duck, and fence off the Whitworth's drive whilst that is replaced with a temporary developer access road.

The new fence line cuts across the existing drive to the corner of the Pub, and is about .5 to 1m inside the old line. The existing drive will be retained whilst the new road into the site (Retail Park and access for DnD and Whitworth's grounds) is built. Temporary fencing is currently in place inside the new fence line to enable working. The new fence is likely to be similar to the existing green open fencing at the beginning of the driveway.

For the next few months [10 weeks + at least ] Whitworth's will be driving through the DnD Car Park to access their ground, as agreed between all parties and the developers in the last few weeks.

Our Car Park stewards will be working to ensure we maximise the use of our reduced parking (Car sharing for players/staff/away teams advised etc..), whilst ensuring Whitworth's can get through to their ground as well.

Saturday is the first weekend we will have this layout, and Whitworth's are also at home on Saturday, so please bear with us on this. The impact to most fans should be minimal as we don't tend to have many spaces on site (mainly staff/players/away team/officials and disabled spaces), but be aware that the driveway will potentially be a bit busier with extra traffic.

We will be maintaining the disabled slots that we already have so there should be no impact to those that currently use those spaces.

Ultimately the new entrance to the Dog and Duck Ground for car traffic will be on the existing fence line (approx) opposite the back of the Terrace, and a pedestrian entrance will come into the ground along the existing fence line, opposite the Club Shop.

[Note: Final layout of entrances is still under discussion].

A couple of pictures taken earlier in the week - the fence posts are now also removed.


Image - from mid car park looking back towards main entrance/B&Q.


Image - from near old turnstiles looking across into Whitworth's old driveway.

.

Care is obviously going to needed by anyone accessing the car park/ground until the New Year as Dazzler has pointed out.

From discussions with fans over the last few weeks I was amazed how few were aware that a new retail park was proposed so there will be many who don't read this forum will be surprised this afternoon that preparatory construction work has now commenced.

Trek wrote:Care is obviously going to needed by anyone accessing the car park/ground until the New Year as Dazzler has pointed out.

From discussions with fans over the last few weeks I was amazed how few were aware that a new retail park was proposed so there will be many who don't read this forum will be surprised this afternoon that preparatory construction work has now commenced.

Hopefully some will look at the OWS - http://www.afcdiamonds.com/building-wor ... strictions

Formic wrote:
Hopefully some will look at the OWS - http://www.afcdiamonds.com/building-wor ... strictions

Great work, Formic. I know that visiting club secretaries are going to be notified by James regarding restricted car parking and access arrangements prior to each match and I see Oadby notified their fans on their web site. Building operations have always the potential of causing disruption to adjoining users but this is something that the club, WTFC and Whitworths have been discussing with the Developer, their consultants and contractor since first being notified of this project in early March.

I'm am hopeful with the continued co-operation that we have enjoyed that this work will be carried with the minimum of inconvenience to the three football clubs and fans.

When the project is finally completed next May I sure that everyone will be impressed with the revised entrance for cars and pedestrians and this, in my opinion, will be far more accommodating than currently exists.

It's also detailed in the UCL Bulletin that is sent out weekly to all UCL officials / secretaries etc.