Councillors Debate Future Of Churchill Fields

Churchill Fields

Plans to improve Churchill Fields were hotly debated by parish councillors at Uppermill Civic Hall last night. The idea of getting rid of the existing running track to allow for better drainage and more pitches was the focus of much of the discussion, ahead of tonight’s public meeting on the matter.

Cllr Barbara Beeley, who has been a driving force behind the process so far, described the state of the often-waterlogged fields as a “running sore” for Saddleworth over a long period of time. She also denied claims all local groups hadn’t been properly consulted.

A sub-group established by the Saddleworth and Lees District Partnership has been investigating the issue for a year. The Saddleworth Runners club has said it didn’t find about that until last week, when it was revealed that the track could be removed.

It’s understood that the track would have to go to allow work to solve the drainage issue to take place. Not only would fully replacing it afterwards cost more money, but it would take away space newly freed up for football and rugby league, two sports apparently likely to pay towards the improvement of the fields.

One suggestion has been to mark out a running track on the grass during the summer instead. But the Saddleworth Runners have dismissed that idea as inadequate, not least because it would be too slippery and dangerous to use when wet.

Cllr Barbara Beeley

Cllr Beeley told the meeting: “It hasn’t been that we’ve kept this thing a secret, or haven’t consulted with people along the way.” She said that talks had been held with clubs which “booked onto the fields regularly” in November and again last month, although it seems the Saddleworth Runners didn’t fit that description.

She explained that the sub-group had looked into various funding possibilities from sporting bodies, and discovered that only the Football Foundation and Rugby Football League had showed interest in potentially offering grants. Both insisted that the council should match any cash they put in.

The District Partnership, which is funded by Oldham Council, has put forward £50,000, and a further £100,000 has been identified from existing funds relating to local planning projects, so-called Section 106 money (for an explanation of what that is, read this). It’s hoped a similar total will be raised from the football and rugby bodies, bringing the total cost of the project to £300,000.

Addressing the issue of the track, Cllr Beeley said that UK Athletics had told the sub-group that it didn’t have any cash to help, because it had priorities elsewhere in the region. However, she insisted that none of the current plans were set in stone, adding that feedback from local clubs, councillors and the public meeting would “go back into the pot for us to look at.”

She added: “The drainage work is only part one of a plan to improve the facilities, but there will have to be compromises. We intend it to be a multi-sport facility that is one of the best in the borough, although we may have to do it in stages.”

Cllr Ken Hulme

Cllr Ken Hulme, who sits as an independent, said he was “delighted” the issue of Churchill Fields was being looked at, but added: “I’m concerned this has been done without the sort of public consultation that should have taken place, I really do think there should be more than this.” He criticised the lack of diagrams or firm proposals for councillors to look at.

He added that he was worried that the Churchill site, which is between Uppermill and Greenfield, would come to be dominated by football and rugby because those sports were putting grants forward: “What may happen is that it may not be what local people want, it’s what you think you can get money for.”

Cllr Hulme also said he’d rather have seen the £800,000 borrowed by the council to fund the Civic Hall extension spent on Churchill Fields instead. He also pointed to the amount of Section 106 cash generated in Saddleworth since 2000, more than £2m according to Oldham Council figures, saying: “I think £100,000 is great. But millions have gone out of this area in Section 106 money into Oldham, and they’ve not been spent here.”

But Cllr Alma McInnes told Cllr Hulme: “Get off your soapbox and be realistic.” She said: “This is going to take an awful lot of money, and the people who are putting the money in are going to want a say, but local people are also going to have a say.”

Cllr Brian Lord

Cllr Brian Lord, a senior Liberal Democrat, criticised Cllr Hulme for “leaping on another bandwagon.” He queried the amount of use the existing track gets: “Nobody’s hired it for the past three years, so if people have been using it they’ve been doing it for free.”

He added that he felt a grass track would be suitable: “When I was at school we used to paint a track on the grass and we never had a problem with it. We’ve got to be sensible. We’ve got to look for what we can get and what we can afford.”

Cllr John Hudson questioned whether the District Partnership was the right forum for the work, given that issue of Churchill Fields had featured strongly in the Parish Council’s own Parish Plan. He added: “I’m afraid we’re trying to go too ambitious, I think most people would just have been happy with getting the drainage sorted out.”

Cllr Mike Buckley commented: “We’ve had forty years of neglect, and now we’re doing something about it. It’s easy to carp about what should or shouldn’t have been done, but this problem is being tackled, and the people involved deserve congratulation.” He added that a new running track could be looked at in the future as a ‘phase two’ of the development.

Tonight’s public meeting at the Civic Hall begins at 7:30pm. Everyone is welcome to go along and have their say about the future of the fields.

You can read more from the Saddleworth Runners in a Saddleworth News article from last week here.

(Editor’s note: Many other topics were discussed at last night’s meeting. Articles about some of those will appear on Saddleworth News in the coming days)

Author: Jude Gidney - Editor

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