Since the start of the season, Newcastle City Council have on match days, been introducing road closures around St James’ Park, and have been reviewing this process following helpful feedback from fans.
The area outside the East Stand is still being closed an hour before kick-off to protect fans entering the stadium, who have to queue on the road.
In response to requests from fans who need close access to the stadium for mobility reasons, the Council has recently revised where the closures are located around the East Stand. The closure of Leazes Terrace has been moved closer to the access points to Leazes Park to allow more of the existing charged parking bays to be retained and used on match day.
In order to limit crowd congestion around the road closure after the match, the City Council has moved the location of the closure on Terrace Place and moved it further away from St James’ Park towards Leazes Park Road for the exit phase from the match.
Strawberry Place will remain open before kick-off and is closed to traffic at the beginning of the second half of the match to protect fans at the end of the game – when Strawberry Place is at its busiest. The Council originally estimated to close Strawberry Place twenty-minutes before final whistle, and it would reopen twenty-minutes after final whistle. In practice, this closure takes longer than twenty-minutes to implement and remove.
Other match day observations have found whilst undertaking the closures it can take up to twenty-minutes for the majority of the crowd to leave Strawberry Place, therefore this needs to remain closed until approximately 45-minutes after final whistle.
In view of this the City Council are revising the closure estimates for Strawberry Place and can confirm it will be closed for 45-minutes before the final whistle until 45 minutes after the end of the match. These timings are approximate and only for guidance.
Cllr Nick Kemp, Chair of Safe Newcastle, said: “The City Council and its partners have been working closely to keep football fans safe, in and around St James’ Park on home match days. This has involved road closures being implemented before and after Newcastle United games to ensure the secure movement of fans to and from St James’ Park.
“These increased measures have been put in place due to security risks on the mainland, in Europe and internationally. We have been in discussions with the Fans Forum, the Football Club and with the Police to work together and make sure safety is always top of the list of priorities.”
The next home game at St James’ Park is against Liverpool FC on Sunday 1st October (K.O 16:30).
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