On September 9th, planning review committee voted to build on Bertie Park. The government say if you want to build on a recreation ground, you have to replace it with equivalent or better. OCC want to shrink Bertie Park to 1/10th of its size. Compensation is a 3-minute walk, unsafe for women and children… with blackberry bushes to stop people wandering off the path. You couldn’t make it up!
Imagine a nature trail (3-minute walk), 31 affordable homes, and a rather cramped MUGA. Would you demolish the homes and replace them with open parkland with a larger MUGA? Well, no. For Cllr Smowton, this means that housing is more important than recreation. What this really shows is that if you build on a recreation ground, it’s gone forever.
“It’s really important that we provide affordable social housing, but it’s almost a bit of an insult to say that the working class people who are likely to live there should have lesser provision. And if we don’t meet that criteria, there’s an issue around equality that I think sits at the heart of this.”
We can’t do anything before the council publishes its “Decision Notice.” We think we might have strong grounds for challenge. Play England are watching carefully. If OCC can ignore government guidance, so can every other council in the country.
