Tonight at 7:30 there is the Broadfield neighbourhood forum just up the road (topic: Broadfield parks and green spaces). On the other hand, at 7:45 Portugal and Germany kick-off in the first quarter final. Not a difficult decision to make…
The irony is that the forum was re-scheduled because the original date clashed with the local elections. Given that the turnout in Broadfield local elections can sometimes only just scrape into double figures (as a percentage) there is a good chance that more potential attendees will be affected by a clash with the football than with an election. I would have forgone an evening of knocking on doors – or just started earlier – but I’m not going to miss the footie, so I’ll have to miss bumping into our old friend Alan Quirk after all.
Still… there is always the community centre AGM next week to look forward to instead, so its really a case of ‘see you next Tuesday Alan!’
It was quite an informative meeting, but quite shambolic because of the poor standard of chairmanship. I wonder why the Chair always has to be a councillor. Some of them are quite clearly not up to it.
We got a presentation on the new super playground, mostly paid for by Section 106 money, but which the Tories will no doubt attempt to extract the last ounce of credit for, and an assurance from the officer that there would be no blanket removal of the smaller playgrounds in Broadfield. She said that because of some comments I had made in response to a survey about the playground at the end of my street there were no immediate plans to remove it. I couldn’t bask in the feeling of victory for long, because some bloke who obviously thinks this playground should be removed, started berating me. About a different playground, round the corner, which has already been removed. The way he told it, it was like the interface between the Falls Road and the Shankill Road at the height of Belfast’s Troubles. I fear he may have over-egged his pudding.
We had a leisure officer going on for ever about an artificial football pitch, dominating the meeting by talking about everything else under the sun. Then Irealised- the Council officers go on at such length, justifying the Council’s policies, because the councillors say nothing. County Councillor Jim McGough was vocal and effective, but there were 3 Tory councillors, whose policies the officers were explaining, who said virtually nothing. Hear no evil, speak no evil, seen no evil? Okay, Cllr Gilroy’s only just been elected, so maybe that’s a bit harsh on him, but the others capitulated all responsibility.
Then on to the bombshell- Broadfield House and Park. The Tilgate Park manager gave it a build up, saying he was going to shock us all. First he justified the cutting down of the trees, which has been controversial. They’d had to do a bat and dormouse survey before removing any trees. He didn’t say if they’d found any. Then he announced that Thames Water want to dig up almost the whole park in order to lay a new main sewer pipe, construct an underground concrete overnight holding tank and a compound to house building materials and machinery. I think everyone had been expecting him to announce that a new housing estate was going to be built or something, because not much was said. By now it was after nine and I had to go, but I was thinking about this afterwards and came up with the following questions.
1. What’s more important- a new sewage facility or the preservation of the park. Presumably there must be a reason why Thames Water want to build this facility.
2. Is there an alternative?
3. Is the Borough Council going to gain from this financially?
4. What opportunity for public consultation will there be- I’ve looked on the Council’s Forward Plan, and there is nothing about it there, and the Tilgate Park manager didn’t think it needs planning permission because Thames Water is not a statutory body. I think, and hope, that he’s wrong about the latter.
All in all, I think the Forum is valuable to Broadfield, but I think that it could be developed into something better if wasn’t just a platform for the Council, but a real dialogue with residents. And of course, everyone involved, including myself, has to try to make it interesting and encourage more people to come along
Doesn’t sound like as much fun as the footie was, but the business with Broadfield Park is a worry.