I sit in the North Stand and yes it is annoying when the steel wall is shut! You can imagine though that it can eliminate potential trouble. The wall is ready to be used in groups of matches it seems, the Wall was up on Tuesday but not actually shut. Whether this was always the intention I don't know. Five minutes extra walk is not too bad is it? And any new young families kept away from any issue's.
But it’s not just 5 minutes is it. Before the Rotherham game the club put out that the wall wouldn’t be up in a match pack online, so I parked in the car park(normally park in BBL). When we parked up in the overflow and walked over and saw it was up it was pretty annoying. I needed to get back after the game so left early (86th min) and still got stuck in the car park for over Forty minutes. As for safety, no other grounds need to have walls up outside, and the stewards and police deal with the crowds quite easily. Let’s be honest trouble is rare these days unless there is a history between the clubs.