Problem with tall people using Bertie Park MUGA

Oxford City Council want to build on Bertie Park. Government policy says it has to be replaced with “equivalent or better provision in terms of quantity and quality in a suitable location.” OCC have big problems with our Multi Use Games Area (MUGA).

They want to put it 11m from bedroom windows. Thames Valley Police say there is a real “risk of noise having a negative impact on residents, neighbour disturbances and community tension.”

OCC want to lower the MUGA by 30cm from street level to cut down the noise. But that won’t work if people using the MUGA are very tall. So they’ll have “a simple method to report noise complaints, damage and/or misuse.” Thames Valley Police (here) say this just isn’t a good place to put a MUGA; the only real way to solve the problem would be to put higher fencing right around the MUGA so it can be “robustly” locked “outside legitimate hours of usage.”

We think Bertie Park isn’t a bad place for a MUGA, but that Bertie is a really bad place to build homes. OCC say the development is going to planning committee very soon. When it does, we will demonstrate. Watch this space for news!