Tinshill Recreation De-Fence Group

zero tolerance of dictator-style decisions by council officials.

Deputation to Council page retained-historical?

 

“ My Lord Mayor and fellow Councillors, my name is Alan Procter and our deputation is from the Tinshill Recreation De-Fence Group. With me today is Brian Drakes.

We are concerned about a plan to turn our recreation ground into pitches built to Sport England Standards, and fence off at least two of them , against the wishes of our community. These are the issues.

1) Community Engagement- the council have not listened to the views of local people, only six are known to have supported this project, the Plans Panel were against it. So were many  elected representatives.

2) Equality Monitoring- the council are building pitches that will be mainly used by men, to the exclusion of women, pre-school children, the elderly and disabled.

3) Safety- We have seen no evidence of a Playing Field/School risk assessment as could be provided by ROSPA.

4) Sports Pitch Strategy- There seems to be no proper plan for fields in Weetwood, there are other proposals to destroy pitches at Boddington and Lawnswood.

We have some questions that we would like to have answered and ask the council to consider them and put them to its officers?

1) Permitted Development: we would like to know if a planning rule called an article 4 direction could be used to stop the fence if the council so wished?

2) Sport England: we would like to know if Sport England were consulted before the new school was built on sport pitches, or during the planning process for the fence?

3) Scrutiny: we were told that councillors were to refer the matter to a scrutiny Board. We would like to know if it has been referred for scrutiny, if not how can we apply?

Our group is opposed to the fencing of our recreation ground, we won the planning application and were told that the fence would be built anyway, there has been a lot of debate, yet the result is the same. We understand that the fence will be built in February. We ask council to reconsider its decision to build the fence. If they cannot, maybe its erection could be deferred until after the election in May, because this seems to be a political decision and the people might have the answer? Please sign our petition to Gordon Brown, it can be found on our website at tinshillrecreation.com.

 

 

  

De-Fence Group Speech to Council

Date: 12/1/2008