Park Friends urge Councillors to throw out driving range plans

Reporter: Jan Harwood
Date online: 07 October 2008

The Friends of Springfield Park group have appealed to Rochdale's Councillors to throw out a controversial plan to convert an area of open public space at the Park into a driving range for Marland Golf Club.

They have even sent a letter to Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg to appeal that the land is retained for the benefit of all of the community and not just for golfers.

The Friends Group argue: "On decent humanitarian grounds, for the greater good of the public at large, this proposal should be well and truly thrown out. Let us hope democracy prevails and this proposal not forced and pushed through."

"This valuable playing field is used by large numbers of the general public, many travelling from deprived housing within Rochdale. It isn’t just amateur athletes who use these facilities, there are regular visitors, with ages ranging from babies through to those in advancing years.

"It is frequently used by disabled members of the public, many of whom are residents of the home within the park estate. It is used by whites, non-whites and ethnic minorities. The park estate is a great meeting place for multi-nationals, with diverse lifestyles and is great for community cohesion."

Link4Life, which runs the Council's leisure facilities, and is behind the plans to push the driving range forward, received a copy of a document produced by Mike Copson Associates, Golf Range Design & Construction Specialists, which provides information so that Link4Life can make a formal planning application for the driving range to the council.

The document has been dismissed by the Friends of Springfield Park. A spokesperson said: "We would advise this document cannot possibly be considered as an effective feasibility study in any shape or form. It would be interesting to learn what precise request was made to Mike Copson Associates to produce such a basic document. It really isn’t fit for purpose. It would also be interesting to learn how much Mike Copson Associates invoiced for this ‘useless report’."

The Friends group believes that if a driving range is built, large sections of the community would be denied use of the land, arguing that the driving range would be used predominately by white, able-bodied men, while people of all ages and backgrounds currently use the land and organise inpromptu sporting events.

The spokesperson continued: "Serious questions should be asked, who and what is driving this project forward and why? As we have said and are all aware, golf is predominately a white, male, middle class single sporting activity.

"For those members of the general public who can afford to play golf, there is no shortage of alternative golf courses and driving ranges on our doorstep, it could not possibly be considered a needy case. More support could be given to the driving range in Castleton as we are sure Castleton Councillors would agree."