Brighton chief Paul Barber responds to North Stand 'second tier' Amex Stadium extension claim

It's been one of the highlights of the season to see fans back at the Amex Stadium after the recent lockdown.

Next season will be Brighton's 12th at the Amex Stadium and, despite a poor run of recent results, Graham Potter's Brighton will almost certainly be in the top flight once more.

The club continue to work on making improvements to the stadium and there has been talk on social media of adding a second tier of seating to the North Stand.

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Currently, the The North Stand has 2,688 seats. The West Stand is three-tiered which holds 11,833 fans, including 14 executive boxes. The East Stand (including the Family Stand and the premium fans' 1901 Club) holds 13,654 fans.

Writing in his programme notes ahead of Brighton's clash against Tottenham, Barber wrote: "Following on from excellent season-ticket renewals of 90 per cent for 2022/23, our 1901 Club already sold out for the next four years, the removal of COVID restrictions, and the recent second-place finish in the Premier League’s annual fan experience survey, we will be turning our attention back to our plans to further improve matchday facilities for fans at the Amex.

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"Contrary to social media speculation, these plans do not include a second tier of seating in the North Stand – as nice as this would be, it isn’t physically possible! And neither do our plans include a new hospitality lounge above the current North Stand seating.

"Instead, our focus will be on creating better facilities for all fans in the stadium’s external areas to include a more varied food and drink offering, covered space, facilities for both pre-match and post-match entertainment, and external toilets – all designed to encourage earlier arrival at the stadium and later departures which, in turn, should help smooth congestion before and after matches.

"We are also looking at developing some very exciting new West Stand hospitality options, which will further slightly increase our stadium capacity to improve the range of facilities we can offer to fans on matchdays and on non-matchdays where, in a post-COVID world, we will be focusing on working with our partners Sodexo to rebuild our non-matchday events business."

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