Oldham Council’s Response To Churchill Fields Open Letter
Below is a response from Oldham Council to an open letter written by Roger Devy of the Churchill Playing Fields Action Group, which was published on Saddleworth News earlier this week. The original letter, and the subsequent comments, can be viewed here.
The council’s response is from Colette Kelly, the Assistant Executive Director for Neighbourhoods. I’ve reproduced it in full, along with diagrams produced by the council, one challenging a similar graphic produced by Mr Devy, and another explaining the council’s own plans in more detail, complete with annotations. To the view a diagram in more detail, simply click on it.
(UPDATE 1/9: This post was updated to include the diagram of the council’s own plans, after it was sent through in a format I could upload more easily)
The council's critique of the CPFAG plan. (image: Oldham Council)
The council's plan. (image: Oldham Council)
OLDHAM COUNCIL WOULD LIKE TO take the opportunity to reply to the open letter challenging the planned layout for Churchill Playing Fields.
As the letter identifies, four adult pitches are required to sustainably meet the current level of demand (max 13 matches per week) and enable future growth to be accommodated.
Churchill Plan B, as suggested by Roger Devy - click to enlarge.
The assertion that four adult pitches can be located within Churchill Playing Fields without the need to remove the running track (as shown in the respondent’s ‘Churchill Plan B’) does not take account of the detailed pitch specification and related sports development issues, and is therefore is not wholly accurate.
This is because the plan which was used to produce the alternative layout is a basic layout plan prepared for consultation, which for simplicity only shows the pitch sizes and does not include other elements of the pitch specification (taken into account when devising the proposed layout).
Specifically, the following details need to be taken into account when looking at the planned layout for Churchill.
1. Pitch specification
a) Run off areas – in addition to the size of the pitch itself the layout also needs to allow for a 3m run off area around all of the adult pitches.
b) Rugby goal ends – the main pitch available for rugby needs to include an additional 6 metres at each end to create the ‘goal ends’ that are required to comply with RFL specifications.
2. Sports development
a) Proximity to changing rooms – to enable clubs using Churchill to progress through the local league structure the main pitch available for rugby and the largest pitch available for football need to be located as close as possible to the changing rooms.
b) Youth sport – creation of adult pitches with a width of 60m or more enables these pitches to have a dual use, as two junior pitches 60m in length can be laid out across the adult pitch. It is also desirable to retain a stand alone junior size pitch to accommodate competitive youth sport.
As can be seen from the plans prepared by the council (using Geographic Information System mapping tools to ensure accurate scaling) with the requirements above included in the layout plan it is not possible to accommodate four adult pitches within the site.
In addition to not being able to accommodate the pitch specifications and sports development needs outlined above, the alternative layout provided by the respondent would also mean that:
- With an east-west direction of play on the main rugby pitch, play towards the western goal end would be towards the river increasing the chance of lost balls.
- Only two junior pitches could be accommodated within the site (across the 100 x 60m adult pitch) with no space for a third dedicated junior pitch
- The whole copse of trees next to the skate park (identified by our Arboricultural Officer as high value grouping of trees) would need to be removed and a complete re-levelling of the area undertaken (resulting in additional in costs)
- The area of the site over which the drainage works could be installed would be limited, as a result of working around the running track.
- A separate drainage scheme would be required for the running track itself (resulting in additional costs).
Many thanks,
Colette Kelly
AED Neighbourhoods
Author: Jude Gidney - Editor
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Of course Oldham Council are going to reject any attempt at at a sensible compromise – this was clearly a ‘done deal’ as far as OMBC are concerned long before the public got to know about it. As in so many instances with this council the public ‘consultation’ was a charade.
The arguments put forward by Ms Kelly really don’t hold water.
She claims Roger Devy’s proposals would increase costs – but of course they would also save the money that it would cost to rip up and remove the running track – and that doesn’t come cheap !
So what will it really cost in total – Ms Kelly doesn’t say and I guess she isn’t interested in finding out – it wouldn’t help Oldham Council’s case.
She also suggests that the size of Football and Rugby pitches is fixed – there is only one approved size they have to stick to. This just isn’t the case.
Football and rugby pitches can vary in size. The FA’s official minimum dimensions for a ‘full size’ football pitch are 90m by 45m. Of course they can be bigger and the largest pitch Uppermill FC are asking for is around the same size as League team Crewe Alexander. It just doesn’t have to be that big.
Similarly with Rugby pitches. The size proposed is just about the maximum that is allowed under the laws of rugby – but again there is flexibility and the dimensions can be reduced. Nothing is written in stone.
Ms Kelly’s arguments just don’t hold water – there is clearly some room for manoeuvre on pitch sizes and with a little tweaking a sensible compromise could be reached that could accommodate everyone.
I suspect in almost any other council this would happen – but not alas in Oldham !
Some thoughts:
1) If the 55m wide pitch was swapped with the 60m wide pitch on Roger Devy’s revised plan that would create a little more space which may save a tree or 2 and avoid the problem of the ball going in the river.
2) Can someone tell me how moving the larger pitch 50m or so to the left will make it too far for the football players to walk to the changing rooms?
3) When Cllr Bealey did her presentation at the public meeting back in March, she showed a slide where all the adult pitches were split into 2 junior pitches providing 9 altogether with the new one on their plans. Why has this number suddenly been reduced to 3?
4) Can’t the drainage ditches be dug through the track and then the track resurfaced afterwards? Still cheaper than digging the whole thing up and carting it off elsewhere I would have thought.
Whether or not Cllr Hulme’s allegations of a done deal are accurate or not (and let’s not forget that he is not impartial here), it is clearly not a “sensible compromise”. Oldham Council have provided a series of reasons that invalidate Roger Devy’s suggestion as a viable alternative.
It would appear from the nature of the council’s response that a great deal of consideration has gone into the proposal. True to form, Cllr Hulme has tried to cloud the issue with further conjecture.
It was not difficult for me to pick holes in the Roger Devy proposal (see my comments on the original post). Indeed some of those reasons were cited in Oldham Council’s response.
Commenting on the Roger Devy proposal, Cllr Hulme said “It is clear after a thorough examination that there are absolutely no technical reasons why drainage works on Churchill fields cannot take place while retaining the running track.”
We now know that there are technical reasons.
So, having already supported a plan that was unsuitable for so many reasons, perhaps Cllr Hulme should avoid making further speculative statements as if they are fact, such as the one about there being “room for manoeuvre on pitch sizes”.
In my guise as Devil’s Advocate again… it might be important to the funding bid that the pitches are of a particular size – or maybe it’s just seen as an opportunity to create the best possible facilities.
There is still a case for arguing the relative importance of athletics, football and rugby and whether the proposals should go ahead at all, but if CPFAG want a well drained running track, perhaps they should have concentrated their efforts into raising the funds themselves, rather than tinkering with the efforts of a large number of organisations and individuals.
This proposal is utterly selfish to other users of the fields why the whole world has revolve around Rugby and Football is beyond me! Leave it as it is and just sort the drainage out surely not an difficult task in the hands of the right people.
Sorry Paul which other users are these that are going to be disadvantaged? bearing in mind (broken record again) it’s currently two football pitches and two rugby pitches and a running track that hardly get’s used and it will then become two rugby fields and two football fields.