The Crowthorne Parish Council have sent me a press release in answer to this story 'Parish council meeting disrupted by public unhappy with shelter plans'.
Crowthorne Parish Council 2nd March 2010
Playbuilder Partnership Refurbishment Project -
As Trustees of the Morgan Recreation Ground, Crowthorne Parish Councillors have a duty to provide recreational facilities on this site for the children and youth of Crowthorne Parish Council (CPC). CPC also has a duty to provide facilities for all the Parishioners of Crowthorne,
and the fitness equipment and shelter is for the use of all generations.
On 31st March 2009, a Working Group (WG) was formed for the refurbishment of the Morgan Recreation play area in Partnership with Bracknell Forest Council. Funding was provided through a Government Scheme called Playbuilder. This scheme provides play equipment for
children in the 8-13 age group.
To ensure that the Parish Council consulted widely, the Playbuilder Working Group extended an invitation to the Police and a local (Just Around the Corner) youth worker, who had already worked amongst the young people of Crowthorne and had been involved in an earlier
Antisocial Behaviour WG, to join the Playbuilder WG. It was strongly recommend by the co-opted members, that the youths should have facilities of their own e.g. a tuck shop or a toilet. As their recommendation was not included in the Playbuilder remit funding, the
fitness equipment and shelter were agreed to be separately funded by Bracknell Forest S106 funding.
A Public consultation was completed in July 2009, which included local school children of various ages. Residents were also canvassed in Crowthorne High Street, and Consultation forms were handed out to parents and children attending the Summer Play Scheme, which is run by the local police on the Morgan Recreation Ground. During the consultation, the Parish received 240 responses. A large percentage of the children, aged between 8 -13 years, responded to the consultation indicating that they would feel more comfortable and less intimidated by the older children and would prefer to be separated from them, highlighting the need for a separate area for this older group. With guidance from the co-opted members of the WG, the Thames Valley Police Crime Prevention Design Officer and the results of the Consultation, the position of an appropriate location for additional equipment was agreed.
Thames Valley Police Crime Prevention Design Officer (CPDO) attended the WG meeting in October 2009 and advised how well fitness equipment / shelter had worked in other areas. Winnersh and Shinfield have both confirmed that for their sites the project has been a complete success to the point that both Councils plan more equipment in the future. The
young people see shelters as 'somewhere to go'. CPDO also advised that he thought the siting of the shelter would meet the brief of the 'Secured by Design' Award.
Playbuilder and the Fitness zone & Shelter have been well publicised in the local press and the Design Plans were displayed in Crowthorne Library from 17th December 2009 and extended to 4th January 2010 There were also locally distributed publications from April 2009, including, CPC Notice Boards, the Crowthorne Eye Community Magazine. There were
also many local press releases over the past year.
Following CPC's Parish meeting in January 2010, the design for the Playbuilder scheme including the location for the fitness zone and shelter was approved by Full Council.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of the consultation process I personally feel that overall Crowthrone itself will benefit from these 'Working Groups'. It is a shame that people feel threaten by some of the local teenagers. These new facilities should help reduce any problems. If any future problems occur that are caused by the youths then if they are carefully dealt with and resolved sensibly as im sure they will be.
Showing posts with label Morgan Rec. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Morgan Rec. Show all posts
Sunday, 14 March 2010
Monday, 8 March 2010
Local Blog: Parish council meeting disrupted by public unhappy with shelter plans
A recent parish council meeting held on the 2nd March had to be called off after the public 15 minute question time because members of the public who attended the meeting disrupted it.
The members of the public who attended the meeting believed that they had not been consulted. More about the meeting is reported here.
The council received 240 responses, and it was advertised on the Parish Council notice board near the library. 240 is actually a very large response to a consultation.
The council I suspect did not consult the roads around the Morgan recreation ground as this is what the members of the public believed (I have emailed the council to ask who they consulted). If the plans were explained to the public along the roads I expect most people would be happy with the plans (which do appear to be quite good see here ). This could be partly down to the council consulting the wrong individuals. Maybe the council were concerned that the plans would be turned down.
However there are two sides to this story.
Does this action by the public demonstrate that we are now so scared of our youths and teenagers that some people will now react against a new play area. The Morgan recreational ground already has a play area. Some youths do hang at the park benches and around the area. I went there myself last night to speak to some of them and to have a look for myself. They seemed perfectly pleasant. Perhaps if we engaged with youths a little more rather than making them out too all be vandals and criminals we would perhaps have a better society and better behaved youths.
Does this mean that we can no longer provide facilities for the young for fears that it could descend into some crime hot spot. it's these facilities and the work of youth groups that help make our teens better people. Showing them how much they are disliked will only encourage bad behaviour. I myself once hangout at the Morgan Rec . Police even then did used to come down and talk to us. Once we were even chased by the police because we were having races and the police thought we were running away from them and were up to no good.
Before we blame the youths perhaps we should look at our own attitude and step away and think about the impact of our actions.
The members of the public who attended the meeting believed that they had not been consulted. More about the meeting is reported here.
The council received 240 responses, and it was advertised on the Parish Council notice board near the library. 240 is actually a very large response to a consultation.
The council I suspect did not consult the roads around the Morgan recreation ground as this is what the members of the public believed (I have emailed the council to ask who they consulted). If the plans were explained to the public along the roads I expect most people would be happy with the plans (which do appear to be quite good see here ). This could be partly down to the council consulting the wrong individuals. Maybe the council were concerned that the plans would be turned down.
However there are two sides to this story.
Does this action by the public demonstrate that we are now so scared of our youths and teenagers that some people will now react against a new play area. The Morgan recreational ground already has a play area. Some youths do hang at the park benches and around the area. I went there myself last night to speak to some of them and to have a look for myself. They seemed perfectly pleasant. Perhaps if we engaged with youths a little more rather than making them out too all be vandals and criminals we would perhaps have a better society and better behaved youths.
Does this mean that we can no longer provide facilities for the young for fears that it could descend into some crime hot spot. it's these facilities and the work of youth groups that help make our teens better people. Showing them how much they are disliked will only encourage bad behaviour. I myself once hangout at the Morgan Rec . Police even then did used to come down and talk to us. Once we were even chased by the police because we were having races and the police thought we were running away from them and were up to no good.
Before we blame the youths perhaps we should look at our own attitude and step away and think about the impact of our actions.
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