The rugby pitch in the middle of the track at Churchill Fields.
A local councillor who has been heavily involved in plans to improve the facilities at Churchill Fields has defended the way the proposals have been put together.
Athletics club Saddleworth Runners has criticised the plans, which would involve getting rid of the running track at the fields. The area has long suffered from serious drainage problems forcing events to be postponed.
Councillors want to improve the playing surface with four pitches for football and one for rugby, and refurbished changing rooms too. But their plans would see the existing track replaced with a grass one.
Even though the proposals have been in the works for the past year, Saddleworth Runners say nobody from Oldham Council or the Saddleworth and Lees District Partnership ever contacted them to let them know. Club officials were furious when they finally found out last week.
But Cllr Barbara Beeley, who chairs the Partnership, has insisted Saddleworth Runners have had the opportunity to give their views.
She issued a statement saying the club didn’t attend a meeting of local sports groups on 17 February. However, it doesn’t seem the Runners were ever directly told about it. The Saddleworth Village Olympics was represented at the meeting, but that is a separate organisation from the athletics club.
Cllr Barbara Beeley
Cllr Beeley also said a public consultation had begun on 3 February, and that details had been passed on through local residents’ associations and posted on the Saddleworth Parish Council website, although it’s not obvious where exactly on the website that information is.
She commented: “We have a strong commitment to sort out the drainage problems at Churchill Playing Fields and provide Saddleworth with one of the best sports facilities in the borough in full consultation with the local community and local sports clubs.”
Cllr Beeley added: “It is only since the Liberal Democrat administration at Oldham Council created District Partnerships with real budgets that we have had the opportunity to explore and help fund solutions to the drainage problems and worn out playing surfaces.”
She concluded: “This is the best opportunity we have had to finally sort out Churchill Playing Fields’ drainage and improve the facilities for sport. Without this funding Churchill Playing Fields will continue to deteriorate to the point where it will be unusable for anything at any time.”
Speaking to Saddleworth News last week, Runners Chairman Jill Davies said they simply didn’t know about what the council has been planning: “There’s been nothing. No posters, no consultation with the club at all. When I contacted them, they said that for some reason we were not on the list of clubs they’d been given.”
Jill Davies with members of the Saddleworth Runners at Churchill Fields last week.
She also said a grass track wouldn’t be adequate: “Apparently they’re going to grass it all over and mark lines on it. But grass is not good enough for running, it’s slippery and dangerous when it gets wet.”
Ms Davies also stressed the importance of the running track to the community: “It’s a facility that local children use. We run a junior section in the summer, and we get up to 40 children a night. It introduces children into athletics, and the notion of running on a track.”
Meanwhile, independent parish councillor Ken Hulme has formally complained to Oldham Council. He believes the council has failed in its legal “duty to involve” the whole of the community in preparing the plans, and has accused the council of being “selective in those groups in talked to and worked with in drawing up the proposals.”
He said: “My complaint is that a wide range of users including Saddleworth Runners, local community groups, Saddleworth Parish Council as well as individual council taxpayers have not been given the opportunity to be involved in the decision to make an application to the Football Foundation for a grant to improve the drainage in Churchill Fields.”
Cllr Hulme continued: “This grant would involve permanently removing an important facility - the athletics track - and could have serious implications for community events held on Churchill Fields.”
The whole scheme would cost an estimated £300,000. The Partnership, which is funded by Oldham Council, has committed £50,000, with almost £100,000 available from existing funds relating to local planning projects, so-called Section 106 money (for an explanation of what that is, read this).
The rest would come in part from the sports clubs themselves but mainly from governing bodies. Councillors say the Football Foundation and Rugby Football League have shown interest in potentially giving grants.
A public meeting will be held at the Civic Hall in Uppermill tomorrow, beginning at 7:30pm. Everyone is welcome to go along and put forward their views on the proposals.
mmmm - the two contributions from a leading figure in local football (and doing a great job) Barry Kelly in Saddleworth News on Feb 25th - see below - rather supports the Saddleworth Runners contention that they were not consulted. And what about local Community Associations like Greenfield & Grasscroft Residents Association - were they involved ?
All in all not very satisfactory.
‘Those groups found in the local records who book, use and pay for the facility year on year were logically consulted as likely to be most interested in modernising Churchill. Evidently Saddleworth Runners were not one of them.’
Barry Kelly
February 25th, 2011 at 12:34 pm
‘At risk of repeating myself, the principal users (who are recorded because they pay for that privilege) Saddleworth Village Olympics, Diggle AFC, Saddleworth Rangers ARLFC, 3D Dynamos JFC and Uppermill AFC have all been involved.’
Barry Kelly
February 25th, 2011 at 7:28 pm
The Parish Council did not approach the Dobcross Village Community.
So to get this right, the council are using lack of maintenance of the track ( something we pay them to supply ) as a good reason to rip it up, somehow improve drainage, and supply an inferior track ( with no guarantee that they would maintain that ) at a cost of thousands of £££’s……. Maintain what we got would appear to be the cheaper option.
I am getting tired of the council masqurading failure to maintain (to do what we pay for) as “IMPROVMENTS”
If all fails for the runners there is an excellent surfaced trail around Dovestone reservoir, mostly flat apart from a couple of short steep sections and around two and half miles in circuit length.
Ahhhh….this all sounds frighteningly familiar.
Ask any member of Friends of Crompton Moor what their experiences are of OMBC’s underhand attempts at ‘consultation’ mean.
They will ask loaded questions, and ignore the answers if they aren’t what they wish to hear. They will then re-ask equally loaded questions of a more sympathetic audience, and publish those results. When quizzed on the legitimacy of this approach, they will hire expensive sub-contractors to throw a tea-party with cakes and coloured balloons, at which they will present further skilfully loaded questions and options, before announcing that their plan is welcomed by all, after massaging a few figures here and there.
Saddleworth Rnners beware….. plans will be well advanced, and you will doubtless already be well outmaneuvered before you’ve even got wind of what you’re up against. These people are not amateurs.
Spot on Mic - but they don’t always get their way - all is not lost.
Tonight’s meeting should be interesting to say the least. I appreciate that the football and Rugby clubs pay for and use the facility, as does the saddleworth olympics, but after the drainage is sorted, then can the track not be relayed? It sounds as if the football club have got their money earmarked by the FA (and McDonalds/Coca Cola - who I presume supply funds to the FA in return for sponsorship). If this is the case does the running track spoil the plans for the pitches, hence why Saddleworth Runners were not consulted? Will the new pitches also mean that events such as Yanks, Saddleworth Show and the Folk Festival be banned from using the playing fields? I’ve taken part in the Frank Hodson Saddleworth 6 event in recent years, starting at churchill playing fields - so they would use and pay for the facilities, so why overlook them? Could be that they would make the most noise about the removal of the running track maybe?
At Crompton Moor we have already had a taste of Oldham Councils Consultation process.
As Mic has said it shows all the integrity we have come to expect from the Liberal Democrats in recent times.
Even if you win every legitimate argument like we did, it will still be levered through by manipulation of the statistics and twisting of the facts.
I hope you fare better than we have. There is a very rotten smell to the way we are being treated.
Too true Gary.
What most of us want is consultation and co-operation between ALL interested parties to tackle this problem.
But instead of consultation we get confrontation with Oldham Council trying to pit footballers against runners.