The playing field has been used for sports and pastimes for over 20 years and therefore it is entitled to become a registered village green. This will enable it to be protected. Please can we protect this much valued and much-loved village asset and open space.
The Open Spaces Society campaigns and helps parish councils to establish registered village greens. The Spooner Row Community Council should at the very least register the playing field and give it protection. Or perhaps this will go against the Council's future development intentions for the playing field, this worries me.
Let us not take the playing field open space for granted or we may lose it.
Actually this might be a sensible idea and if you wish the council to consider it can you please ask a councillor to put it on the agenda although I would want to see what exactly this means , as I am sure would the whole council, for the playing field in real practical terms.
Unfortunately we remain without a clerk at the current time despite a month of advertisement so far and as such this idea will be , assuming the council agree to it, be put on the back burner.
If anon you want to get involved with the council and get paid for it , then there is almost an open goal to shoot at , although you will of course not have any voting rights. I say almost because we obviously would prefer a qualified clerk or at the very least someone with IT skills and who would be prepared to train to get qualified, which we would pay for !
I see there have been some long overdue improvements on the recreation ground - and the school gets full use of it, which is great for everyone. I think we need to register this as a 'village green' to protect it for future generations. Why can't this be put on the agenda, at the very least for discussion?
I would second that. The recent addition of goals and a table tennis table to the playing field has brought about a big increase in people venturing out. Its great to see youngsters, mums and dads enjoying themselves. Certain members of the community council have been doing what they promised to do in 2018 and are bringing about positive change. Its just a shame that those with political careers to consider and links to the old regime seem interested in holding things back. I always found it strange that the new community council had a chairman that wouldn't give up his seat on Wymondham Town Council and a vice-chairman that campaigned alongside Wymondham Town councillors AGAINST its very formation. As a Suton resident I remember the statements made on the doorstep, one of which being the lie that the new council would not be financially viable. They were scaremongering. So congratulations to those on the community council that are now getting things done up on the playing field and if certain councillors should decide to resign, I will be happy to give my time to be a community councillor.
Sorry, confused here what exactly is being held back?
I have no political career, far too old and stood as a councillor in Wymondham to help with the split away from Wymondham although this has not quite worked as well as I would have liked , and of course I did not get given the seat, I was elected into it .
As regard your own ambitions all I can say is please put yourself up as candidate and yes the view expressed that we would not be financially viable proved to be very wrong but to be clear it was never a view I agreed with.
What I would say however is that the community council has not in any way shape or form proved to be a politically driven organisation and whilst we have councillors on the community council who do not share the same over arching political view I would say that all have worked very hard for the community, with no personal financial benefit whatsoever, what ever their badged colour ( if any) and that is how it should be. I think it true to say that Wymondham Town council do not operate quite so altruistically at times, but i am pleased to say not as often as they could, except when it comes to elections, however we are all at the mercy of the electorate in that regard.
Who gets elected in the next round in 2023 is a wait and see exercise but, I say again, a healthy council comes from many candidates and we need to remember we are all accountable to the whole of the electorate, not just vested and minority interests although I would be foolish not to acknowledge an apathy towards all politics in general , which is very sad. It tars us all with the same brush.
Going back the the village green idea , please ask your local councillor , any of us will do, to put it on the agenda but please not as Anon
I do think it would be a good idea to explore this, can a councilor please put it on the agenda.
I very much support the school having a increased facility for sports and outdoor education, this should be a shared use facility with the community, so every one wins. I know that schools are tapping into match funding from the sports council, is there similar funding for community users, if so we should tap into it.
It should also be developed with an increased car park facility to reduce traffic on school lane, the amount of times that I'm trapped due to inconsiderate parents parking across from my drive is becoming unacceptable. (I absolutely understand that this is exacerbated by Covid restrictions on pick up times)
On a single track road parking opposite a driveway causes road safety issues, I have to "peek out" into the traffic before I can see if anyone is coming. traffic used to be further away from my side of the road, but at times they have to drive on my property to pass those parked cars.
Other school lane residents are often confronted by vehicles using the private part of school lane for turning.
The petty infighting and personal attacks on this forum needs to stop, it brings the Spooner Row community into disrepute.
Can I suggest that when the new plans are submitted that full disclosure is carried out so that the council can feed back ideas and comments from the community to help steer the committees response.
I understand that members feel that they have been appointed make these decisions, but many opinions can help form a consensus that is more acceptable to those most affected.
I have asked that this be added to the agenda and this has been agreed. Preliminary work however reveals a number of problems which I have asked the Open space society to comment upon.
The issue is what constitutes development and I am not at all sure that a car park extension as suggested, counts as exempt and have also asked about temporary buildings in the same vein
The guidance on this is 28 pages and is full of caveats in favour of development where it appears to me that the slightest hint along these lines railroads the process.
I will ask the council for a view on whether to progress this which in the first instance is contact County to see if it is already registered
Other parish councils have achieved Village Green status so I don't see why Spooner Row can't do the same if there is goodwill. The temporary school building located on the original car park has been there for almost 30 years! What are the rules regarding 'temporary'?
the council have agreed to let me progress this with Norfolk county council and deal with the vexed question of what constitutes development, both existing and future
The playing field is not included in the development boundary and there is no planning application so there shouldn't be a problem in attaining village green status. Can we see any plans for proposed buildings? This would change everything.
The minutes for July are up on the noticeboard and say that Julian Halls would approach the playing fields association and update us but nothing from him and that was over a month ago. I would also like to know has this been dropped?
It appears that Registering the playing field as a Village Green has been morphed into registering it as a Playing Field instead. It cannot offer the same protection from development
Please can the community council register the playing field as a VILLAGE GREEN as originally requested. To be discussed again at next meeting please - Thank you
The Community Council had been asked by a resident as to the merits of designating the playing field as a village green and your council has considered this matter.We gathered information from Norfolk County Council, South Norfolk Council and the Playing Fields Association to be able to understand the complex rules that govern the future use of common land (details on our website).The review conducted by Cllr Julian Halls recommended that this Council should not support a proposal to register the Spooner Row Playing Field as a village green.This recommendation was based on the restrictive nature of this designation.
The Community Council would not be able to upgrade any of our existing facilities without a lot of red tape and any future improvements to the school that involved using the playing field would be difficult.
We would ask that any future questions on this matter be passed to the Chair or our Clerk via our website www.spoonerrow.cc
Posted on behalf of the Chair, The Community Council
Why have you not consulted with our community before coming to the decision of not to protect the playing field as a village green? The councillors simply hold the recreation ground in trust as a public open space. The school is managed by a private learning trust and it is not the council's job to favour the school over residents. I did not vote for this.
I think we should protect our open green space to prevent further expansion.
