Page:Hillsborough Taylor Interim Report Cm765.pdf/30

 Three Pens

After this incident in April 1981 the police requested that the terrace should be divided into sections. The object was to improve crowd control by reducing sideways movement. Division would enable more even distribution to be effected when there was a capacity crowd. It would also enable the west end to be used for both home and away supporters who could be segregated in separate pens, if necessary with an empty pen between them.

This proposal was agreed by the Club and the Officer Working Party and was approved by the local authority. Two radial fences were accordingly fitted in November 1981. They are the fence now separating pens 2 and 3 and that now separating 5 and 6. The result was to divide the whole terrace into three pens. Access from the concourse to the middle pen was through the tunnel and to the wing pens round the sides of the west stand. Dr Eastwood suggested and illustrated an altered layout which would have provided separate access through separate banks of turnstiles to the north stand, to each end of the west stand, and to each of the three pens. Whilst the main object of this was segregation, such a layout would have enabled each of those areas to be monitored numerically via the turnstiles so as to ensure its maximum capacity was not exceeded. The plan was not adopted. The maximum capacity for the new centre pen was calculated at 2,200, but no alteration was made to the Safety Certificate so to limit it nor was there any means mechanically of counting the numbers going into that pen.

The 1985 Changes

By 1985, Sheffield Wednesday had been promoted to the First Division and was drawing larger crowds. The improvement of the Leppings Lane end was raised again by the Club and Dr Eastwood prepared a number of drawings. These illustrated various schemes for achieving segregation by providing more turnstiles in separate banks and divisions of the concourse. The police wanted further divisions of the terrace itself, again to improve control and segregation. There was much discussion of these schemes which included suggestions of 29 and even 34 turnstiles in total. In the result, the following alterations were carried out in 1985.

New Radial Fences

On the terraces, two more radial fences were fitted. One divided the existing central pen into the present pens 3 and 4. Gates were fitted at the mouth of the tunnel to enable each of those pens to be closed off. The second fence was placed in the new pen 4 so as to create the narrow pen 5 intended to be a sterile area. Until those two fences were added there existed only perimeter gates 1,2,4,5 and 6. The creation of pen 3 required a new gate 3 to be fitted which was done.

Barriers

The lines of the new radial fences ran across existing crush barriers so that without modification those barriers would have run through the fencing. The police considered the barriers would be used by fans as convenient mounting points to scale the new fences, thereby defeating their object. They therefore wished spans to be removed from the barriers. Had their wishes been met in full the result would have been an unimpeded run in pen 3 from the mouth of the tunnel down the south side of the new fence to the perimeter. Dr Eastwood dug his heels in against that proposal which he rightly regarded as dangerous. He did however agree to some modification to the middle row of barriers in the newly created pen 3, chiefly to facilitate access. Likewise in the new pen 5, The 1985 modifications to the pens are shown on the plan Appendix 4.

The Turnstiles and Concourse

At the entrance, modification but no increase in number was made at the turnstiles. The bank 1 to 16 was divided from A to G by the metal fence now in place and that division was projected across the concourse inside the turnstiles in the form of a brick wall. A personnel gate was provided for access through that wall but was enlarged to its present size at the request of the police. Those alterations were made in the interests of segregation. The more elaborate divisions which Dr Eastwood had suggested, giving separate access to each sub-division of the accommodation, were not pursued for financial reasons. In May 1985 the Bradford disaster occurred. The south stand at Hillsborough had wooden decking and the Club realised it would have to undertake expensive remedial works there. The cantilever roof of the same stand was also discovered to require expensive repairs.

In fact, shortly after the new dividing fence and wall had been built at the Leppings Lane entrance and concourse, the Club, by agreement with Chief Superintendent Mole, ceased to accommodate home supporters at the Leppings Lane end. There was therefore no longer any need for segregation at that end, but the wall remained. Rh