At 1440 today Sunday 12th March to 1455 I was at the Spooner row playing field taking my dog for a walk and as I arrived there was a small child using a two stroke 4 wheeled mini motorcycle who was driving all over the field at about 25 – 30 miles per hour. There were other unrelated ? 3 children using the goal mouth for football at the time . The parent , a ‘gentleman ‘ with a distinctive Mohican style hair cut saw me looking at the restrictions sign and decided to challenge me.
I explained I was a town Councillor. By this time the dog and myself had managed to walk around the field, although at one point the child felt appropriate to drive close to the dog at full tilt although the dog fortunately did not seem that bothered. We had a reasonably polite but very robust discussion as to whether this was the appropriate use of the field and his argument seemed to centre around the fact she was 5 years old and it was not damaging the field in any way and so what was my problem?
The problem is that without permission , use of the field in this way is an offence which is where you come in please.
He claimed that he could control the speed of the bike and that basically I was a killjoy screwing up her life. He then added that he would bring back a bigger bike if he got banned to make sure the grass was cut up. At this point I explained that I would be reporting the matter to you as the Clerk and re iterated that this was not an appropriate use of the field. I asked why he not could go to an appropriate site to do this to which he replied there is none.
The ‘gentleman’ was in a Clearview window cleaning van 01508 484082 , which I note from the internet is based in Loddon.
If it happens again can you please let the Clerk of the Council know , with details please
Many years ago, maybe 15 or 20 years, there was a similar problem on the playing field. At the time the grass was badly cut up and I think that a football game had to be cancelled because of dangerous ruts. Anyone caught behaving in such an appalling way should be reported, as our Councillor asks, as, if the word is passed around that they can get away with it in an out of the village, many more will be abusing our playing field.
There is an offroad motocross site at Besthorpe, perhaps the gentleman concerned should enquire whether there are facilities/a time slot for children to use this site safely and appropriately.
