Birmingham City: Tom Wagner facing another hurdle in Sports Quarter plans | OneFootball

The chairman has already sent a warning about this issue.

Birmingham City's owners, Knighthead, are set to face more frustration with their Sports Quarter plans as cuts to public transport links around the proposed area have been made.

The Blues' American owners have been nothing short of willing to invest heavy amounts of capital into the club. A summer window in which they spent between £20-25 million as a League One club blew all the previous records for the division out the water, but on-pitch matters aren't their only focus.

Knighthead are looking to move Birmingham out of their current home, St Andrew's @ Knighthead Park, and into a new one in their proposed Sports Quarter.

Earlier in the year, they acquired a 48-acre plot of land, which used to be the old Birmingham Wheels site. They're planning to use it to build a brand new stadium, first-team training facility and academy buildings.

The project is expected to cost between £2-3 billion, but, despite all the positivity surrounding it, there's a chance that it may not go ahead due to problems with local transport. These issues have been further highlighted by cuts to the train schedule that fans would use to get back home from matches.

Birmingham City set for further Sports Quarter frustration

West Midlands Rail confirmed this week that supporters won't be able to go from Bordersley - the closest train station to St Andrew's, and one of the closest to the proposed Sports Quarter site - as the service has been outright cancelled due to overcrowding at the station.

Instead, fans have been advised to use Moor St station, which is half an hour away from St Andrew's on foot.

Not only will this affect those who get to the games by rail, but those who get there by car could also be affected, with more people now more likely to use that same method of transport, which will therefore cause more logjams on the roads when leaving home games.

This could also have big implications on the club's Sports Quarter plans as, in October, the club's chairman, Tom Wagner, said that if the local transport links around the east Birmingham area didn't improve to the level that would be required for the Sports Quarter, then they may not be able to go ahead with it.

"I think the key things [to getting the Sports Quarter built] are faster planning, certainty of reasonably priced energy and, ultimately, better transport," said Wagner, to ITV.

"It's very difficult to get to our existing stadium, St Andrew's at Knighthead Park, and I think when we look at bringing double the capacity, and then having people live there, having folks work there, having people stay in a hotel when they visit Birmingham, you've got a lot of activity going on at the site that we're constructing, so you need much better transport infrastructure in the local community to make that work.

"It makes it very difficult to do [if the transport isn't improved]. So we need to make those things come to fruition."

The Blues Trust have said that they are unhappy with the decision made by West Midlands Rail.

A statement issued to Birmingham Live from the supporters organisation read: "Whilst there have been issues with overcrowding at Bordesley Station this season, it’s disappointing that West Midlands Rail have sought to address this problem by just removing trains in one direction - this is poor customer service.

"It would surely be better to instigate a queuing system at the station and look at increasing train capacity to ensure safety rather than reducing capacity and leaving fans to walk or take a bus with the risk that some fans decide that the hassle of this is too much.

"It’s quite likely that near capacity crowds at St Andrew’s @ Knighthead Park will be the norm now and what we need is more options for fans rather than less."

Knighthead may have to dig into their own pockets to improve potential Sports Quarter travel options

West Midlands Rail cutting back on the services that they operate, albeit due to overcrowding at the station, doesn't suggest that they are going to take on Wagner's advice about improving the local transport network in east Birmingham.

Will he let his Sports Quarter vision fall through because of travel issues? He may have to, but he doesn't come across as the sort of person that will take no for an answer.

If he and his fellow investors want to make this revolutionary change to Birmingham - the club and the city - they may need to bump up the expected costs to try and help improve these transport links.