Application for increased capacity for Aberdeen tie rejected.
Livingston Football Club are disappointed to inform fans that our application for increased capacity for Sunday’s match against Aberdeen has been rejected.
West Lothian Council rejected the proposal on grounds that they had insufficient time to review the application documents despite having them all week, and our Return to Spectators policy was shared with the Safety Advisory Group (SAG) in mid-July. In addition, our first two Premier Sports cup matches were used as test events as agreed with the SAG, for which we received a glowing report.
The club spent a lot of time and energy preparing a thorough application to accommodate and upscale our existing spectator policy to enable a capacity increase to 3,500 for Sunday’s match. We are sure our fans, along with Aberdeen fans will be disappointed at this outcome. That feeling of disappointment and frustration is strongly echoed by the club’s Board and management, particularly when if the match was to be held 24 hours later, we would be allowed 5,000 spectators with no need for approval, or any form of social distancing.
As we emerge from the pandemic and move beyond Level 0, the club were keen to use this weekend as an opportunity to see a gradual increase in crowd numbers to further test our robust policies and procedures, already endorsed by the Council. Regrettably, that will not now be possible. Due to receiving this information late on Friday, several of our plans for Sunday’s match have been affected greatly.
Notably, we will be unable to sell any more general sales tickets for the match due to the 2000 capacity limits. If any season ticket holders are yet to be allocated a seat, this will be done tomorrow morning.
We would like to re-iterate our disappointment and apologise to all fans for this outcome, which is entirely beyond our control and comprehension.
