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Spectre of demolition
• AT last week’s full council meeting, Councillor Katie Dawson tabled a motion asking the council to ensure that the Sobell Centre, and the entire site on which it stands, is kept in council ownership for the sole purpose of providing sports facilities and green space for residents.
All councillors, with the exception of Cllrs Dawson and Andrew Cornwell voted against this motion. An amendment tabled by the Labour group was also defeated.
It was sad that both Labour and Green parties felt unable to work together on this issue.
Had all supported Cllr Dawson’s motion, Sobell demolition as a policy would now be consigned to the waste bin.
Most worryingly, a different motion asked the same meeting to approve a new policy that the Sobell Centre be redeveloped as “a leisure-led mixed use site”, whatever that means. Cllr Dawson demanded that this phrase be withdrawn and, because it wasn’t, voted against the policy document.
This wording appears to raise again the spectre of demolition of the Sobell and its replacement by a non-sports community building.
I ask two questions: from whom has the council sought expert advice in forming the policy; and what consultation has taken place with residents, schools, sports clubs or Sobell users?
In July last year I was told by council officers that labelling the planned replacement building a “leisure” centre would permit the council to include GP surgeries and community policing, clearly at the expense of sports facilities.
Before the next election, £1.7 million of our money will be spent renewing the Sobell ice-rink and “patching” the centre roof while the council enshrines its policy of demolition.
As and when local and national politicians visit you in the build-up to the May 2010 election, please be very explicit about your feelings concerning this policy. Urge them to pressure the council to reverse it.
Barry Hill
Sobell user representative |
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