It’s clear from this thread that it’s worth us undertaking a bit of a myth-buster/explainer type thing for people on what safe standing involves. (I’ll speak to the Coop on that, RH).
A few things:
It’s safer that seating.
The seats in safe standing rails are flush to the rails. In other words, they’re completely flat and don’t get in the way, like with existing all-seater setups.
Before any given match/season, the club decides whether the rails are to be used for seating or standing. That depends on the safety certificate, but you’d never have a situation where within a block, some people are seating and others are standing, blocking their view. It’s either all sat down or all stood up.
They’re retrofitted into existing seating either in a block in the middle of a stand, or along the back rows. This is to avoid blocking the view of others. This wouldn’t be a problem in a redeveloped EP because that’d be factored into sight lines anyway.
This is the way football is going. Safe standing is here to stay and it’s as good as terracing in almost every sense. If we redevelop EP without provision for standing areas, we’re out of whack with the direction of travel.
I get that not everyone wants to stand. I’d never advocate ya getting rid of seats altogether, or for that matter anything close to that. The vast majority of the capacity should be seated, but if we get to a point where a large block, or even a stand, is made up of safe standing, it’ll be better for all of us - better atmosphere, something different, etc.
All of this will come out in the wash when EP is redeveloped. One of the key things will be paying close attention to acoustics, which can be massively improved for us.