We need answers on bike park decisions
I have been fortunate over the last few years that the Chronicle have published my letters exposing the folly of developing the former Entry Hill Golf Course into a commercial mountain bike park.
How delighted I was to see that this administration has now pulled the plug on a development which would have been an ecological disaster. The cabinet member Mark Roper, who is now responsible for this area of the council’s work, has had to front the decision not to proceed and I’m sure it is his business acumen that led to this reversal. It is a great shame that the previous cabinet member and cabinet as a whole took the decision to allow the development to proceed.
How the cabinet made the decision needs to be independently reviewed and the findings published
to see why this was allowed to happen.
Pedal Progression put forward proposals based on no investigation of the site from a contamination aspect. Anyone who has lived in Bath as long as I have would have known the site was a refuse site for many years and to believe extensive cycle tracks could be built without disturbance of the contamination was just “pie in the sky”.
Why did officers support the mountain bike park which had such a poor business plan, and why did not the cabinet ask those searching questions which they are elected to do… we need to have answers.
The finances and contamination are only part of the issues – poor consultation with residents over the inevitable traffic and parking problems should have been at the forefront of any decision-making process. None of these issues were taken into account in awarding the contract to the bike company. We
now have to pay for this blinkered decision.
I hope this council has learnt from this episode and in future asks those difficult questions and not be influenced by those who clearly do not care about the environment. Let’s hope they will take a fresh look at Tufa Fields on Englishcombe Lane.
The site should be used for the residents of the city and the council should engage with an organisation which has the environment at heart.
Bob Goodman Combe Down