Hartington Courts is a popular local facility in Broadgate among the local youth and elderly alike. There are facilities for basketball, or a kick around, there's a bowling green, and Carl Ingram and the other Community Police Officers have a base there.
A while ago, we managed to prevent this site being taken away and replaced with a Fire Station.
Now however, it seems that there are new plans being pushed to develop the area, by putting up a new 'Super Surgery', based on combining together the Doclands Medical Centre in Ashton, and the Fishergate Hill Surgery.
At first glance it seems strange that when so many of our modern ailments are caused by a sedentary lifestyle, our healthcare providers should be planning to take away one of the few spaces left where people can take healthy exercise. The area is also very low - lieing, and must be close to the boundary of the flood plain.
Local Councillors Jack Davenport and Carl Crompton are quoted in the Lancashire Evening Post as suggesting that local people should go for a 'compromise', by not opposing the development, if the bowling green is turned into a better sports facility.
It's also worth asking, what will happen to the existing surgery buildings? Someone with foresight and energy might justifiably suggest these could be ideal to convert into Youth Clubs or some other form of community facility, such as a 'drop in' for our elderly residents.
There will be another opportunity for local people to discuss this issue on Wednesday, at the PACT meeting which will take place at 6.30pm at the Gujurati Hindu Society on South Meadow Lane. If you have a view to express, make sure you get there!
Summer, allegedly
4 months ago
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2 comments:
There is still some consideration to be made about this issue. What the LEP did not make clear is that we intend to consult on this issue. The idea of the compromise was one that we could take to the people in the area, but that would be alongside options to reject the plans outright or to accept them outright. A compromise could give people both things that they want, while removing an underutilised piece of land. We only suggested the compromise at the meeting and it's acceptance as an option was dependent on the wishes of local residents present at that meeting. Issues of flooding are ones for the developers to be concerned about. We will be consulting further on this issue, as we did with the Fires station. As always, the Local Councillors will represent the views of local residents.
There are a couple of issues here: one is that the Hartington Road courts are often used for basketball etc by young people - so anything which reduces these facilities cannot be seen as anything other than a bad thing; the second issue is that the Fire Station application failed because it IS in a flood risk area (and was opposed by the EA for that reason), so what makes medical facilities less at risk than the fire service?
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