Town hall backs £2m plans for sports hub
JON MACPHERSON
CONTROVERSIAL plans to create a £2 million sports hub on popular playing fields have moved a step closer, with councillors offering their conditional backing.
Dozens of protesters rallied outside Accrington Town Hall opposing the Accrington Stanley Community Trust (ASCT) proposals for Higham’s Playing Fields.
However, a motion to support the petition was overwhelmingly defeated by the full council meeting.
The trust has set out draft plans for a large 3G pitch, an artificial cricket wicket, two grass football pitches and one grass rugby or football pitch, changing rooms, cafeteria and a car park. Amateur football leagues and clubs in Hyndburn have added their backing.
Coun Malcolm Pritchard presented the council chamber with the petition to ‘save Higham’s Playing Fields from rede- velopment’, which claims that the fields will stop becoming a public recreation ground ‘if fencing goes around it’.
He told the council meeting: “There have been 1,250 people sign the online petition to save the playing fields from Accrington Stanley Community Trust. There is another hard copy petition going round at the present time and there are over 1,000 people on that one. If any sort of fencing goes round and stops people from getting onto the place it’s then not a public recreation ground like it says it has to be.”
Coun Ken Moss, cabinet member for leisure, said the petition had been ‘put forward on various false pretences’ with many signatories living outside the area.
He told the meeting: “I would like to thank the people who have bothered coming tonight. It’s welcomed by the council when people get passionate about something and come along and try to make your voices heard. I’m terribly sorry that there are people upset about this.”
But he added: “At first the petition was against dog walking, then it was for young people and obesity and then it was against depriving young people of a place to play football and jumpers for goalposts. There are a lot of people on those petitions who aren’t from the area, don’t know the area and don’t know the subject matter. I do feel extremely sorry for all those people in Barbados who have signed your petition. I’m not being flippant about it but those are the hard cold facts. This romantic idea that we all have long summer events with warm beer watching cricket matches on the village green is a fantasy.”
Coun Moss said they have a ‘strong, growing junior football population’ and many local facilities are ‘oversubscribed’. He added: “There are currently 158 registered football teams for young peo- ple in this borough. They are oversubscribed at Hyndburn Leisure Centre because the current trend is they want to play on 3G and 4G pitches.”
The council voted to recommend its support to cabinet for the proposals provided they are approved by Sports England, Fields in Trust, comply with the deeds of the land and gain planning permission.
Council leader Miles Parkinson said: “We all want better facilities in the borough and there are some concerns there. In about 10 days time ASCT will put more information on their website, it will detail it even more and hopefully that will put the concerns to bed. Of course if it doesn’t then it will have to do all that for us to support it.
“But fundamentally if the council had £2 million now we would be doing exactly the same thing at Highams – investing in it for better facilities for children and adults to engage in sport.”