Save Towneley Park Campaign

[Mitch]

Report on Council meeting last night - you know what I'm getting a little tired of is the reporting of various local campaigns which promotes our esteemed councillors as saving the day. (in this case 'I lost my perm last week - Mr Frost! ;D).

If Fulledge Action Community Team and the Towneley for the People Campaign had consistently kept up the pressure on councillors and raised awareness in the local press - they'd be slipping these things through. Still, with the complacency of Burnley's labour council/boosted by central government pressure to recoup funds through the selling off of parks and property - they may well push this through anyway. (the local BNP are just waiting to jump on that one!)

If they do push this through, it's currently gone to County, I'd expect local residents to be getting pretty angry, and ditto if the hospital wing closes. Note Linda White's comments at the end ;D

Here's the report:
www.thisislancashire.co.uk/lancashire/burnley/news/NEWSBLY0.html

Council says `no' to sale of parkland
COUNCILLORS have voted not to sell off parkland needed for a new super school by just one vote.

Burnley Council last night passed a motion by former mayor and Liberal Democrat leader Coun Gordon Birtwistle calling on the authority to refuse a county council request to use part of Towneley Park as part of the massive Building Schools for the Future Programme (BSF).

In a heated debate, members voted in favour of recommending the council's executive not to sell two strips of land on Lower Towneley Playing fields by just one vote, and after two rounds of voting.

After the first round the votes were tied at 15 for and against, but the mayor, Coun Roger Frost who when he took office said he would only use his ballot in key votes sided with the motion in the second round.

However, despite the victory the authority's ruling Labour decision making executive can still sell the land.

As part of the £250million overhaul of secondary education in Burnley and Nelson, Lancashire County Council (LCC) wants to replace Towneley High with the 1,050 place Unity College on the playing fields. The existing school would be turned into parkland.

However, the proposals have caused uproar with thousands of residents against the plans.

Coun Birtwistle last night said he attended a public meeting several weeks ago where he claimed Coun Caddy said the majority of his group were against the location of the new school.

He said if the authority backed the motion raised because of flooding and traffic concerns and refused to sell the land, LCC would have to serve a compulsory purchase order on the land which would let residents have their day at a public inquiry.

He added: "We can only recommend the executive not to sell it, we can't instruct them.

"The executive take on board a fearful problem. They have been removed once, they can be removed again."

However, council leader, Coun Caddy hit back saying the authority had no cash to fund a public inquiry and he wanted to see the legal and financial implications of the matter being called in.

He said: "It would this council and the county council tens of thousands of pounds for a public inquiry..

"It is money we do not have in our budget." Unison steward and resident Linda White said the issue could lose councillors votes at the May elections.

She added: "Nothing short of a bomb blowing up Burnley would stop BSF. Anyone saying otherwise is misinformed.

"The only way we can stop the school is by stopping it being built on a contested site.

"There would be no bomb, no end of the world or the end of BSF."

[Mitch]

WHAT'S GOING ON HERE FOLKS? THE LIB DEMS PROMISED NOT TO SUBMIT TO A COMPULSORY PURCHASE ORDER FOR LOWER TOWNELEY - BUT THIS NOW APPEARS TO BE A FALSE PROMISE!!

THEY ARE TO BE CHALLENGED AT A COUNCIL MEETING AT BURNLEY TOWN HALL, 7pm, Wednesday, 23rd August 2006.

Numerous members of the long-standing Campaign to Save Towneley Park will also be in attendance - come along and fill the gallery! This below is last week's letter to the Burnley Express on the matter:

(Fred, I'll be going along, can you make it too?)

"Please change mind over site challenge
THE Lib-Dem leader, Coun. Gordon Birtwistle, fails the people who put them in power. The Lib-Dems have control of the council's Executive and have backed out of their first big decision to challenge Lancashire County Council over the building of the new school on the football pitches on Lower Towneley.
I, and the residents who attended several public meetings, which Coun. Birtwistle also attended, are disappointed he has not kept his pledge that it would be over his dead body before the Lib-Dems would sell the land at Lower Towneley and would object to the Compulsory Purchase Order.
There are two types of objectors:
l statutory objector, which the council would be as they own some of the land;
l objectors, this is what all the residents who are opposed to the development on Lower Towneley would be.
Coun. Birtwistle knows there is little chance that resident objectors would force a public inquiry as they failed to get it called in at the planning stage. You also know that if the council objects to the CPO there would be a 99.9% chance it would force a public inquiry. We would then get an independent inspector to look and take evidence from both sides and the Secretary of State would decide, not Lancashire County Council.
The council has been advised that the cost of objecting would be between £30,000 and £100,000. The council tax payers of Burnley are already picking up the bill and will be for the next 30 years.
I urge the council to change its decision not to object to the CPO.
COUN. DON HALL, Morse Street, Burnley".

[Frederick]

Lancashire County Council exists in a dark corner of our lives! It takes a large portion of our rates and in return we are allowed six, (I'm told,) Councillors. Five invisible men and one token woman. Do you ever hear of them, or better still, have you seen them? Someone must vote for the. Never mind, as one Labour critic put it, 'they're idle buggers and only appear at election time'. They've a charming life. Does it matter? We could well ask, but, after all we've so many people of all kinds and various classes living off the commonality and I'm sure the expenses come in handy. However, at this time they are wanted and they are wanted to save Burnley's Towneley Park, our laughingly called 'Jewel in the Crown', from further maltreatment. Normally it is the Burnley Town Council who are the culprits and indeed under the Labour regime of some 60 years the Park decayed into a shambles. Now the Park is to have a huge school built on the Fulledge Playing fields and we suspect that very little thought is being put in to the project, ie. very little work is being done to create a new road system to cater for the parents to pick up children. Children who at the present are scattered in three schools over the Burnley District.

The Fields are on a flood plane and it has never been explained what is to be done in this situation. In fact there has been very little explanation of the whole business. We suspect that the project originated in the minds of senior politicians at national and regional levels in an attempt to buy their way out of the morass created by some forty or fifty years' neglect of various Conservative and Labour Government as well as the aquiescence of the Labour Councils in Burnley (1935-2006) and the total uselessness of the Labour MPs since 1945. (Including the present one.)

So then, we need the present faceless and voiceless political cretins who claim our allegiance to act, earn their expenses and oppose this clumsy attempt to buy the votes of the people of Burnley by taking away one of the best, (even if it is tarnished and neglected,) assets the people of Burnley in general and Fulledge in particular have on their doorstep.

[Mitch]

Fred, got your email - leaflet is done, will bring along tonight.

Cheery cheers Mitchx

[fred]

BROKEN PROMISES AND LACK OF CONSULTATION.

THIS IS THE LOT OF BURNLEY PEOPLE WHEN THEY CONSULT WITH THEIR COUNCILLORS.

IT IS PART OF THE DEMOCRATIC PROCESS WE ARE TOLD, BY THE ESTABLISHMENT. THE COUNCILLORS ARE THERE FOR YOUR USE!

WE HAVE SIX COUNCILLORS ON THE COUNTY COUNCIL AND WE HAVE NEITHER SOUND NOR SIGHT OF THEM.

OUR BOROUGH COUNCIL ON THE OTHER HAND ATTENDED A MEETING CALLED BY OBJECTORS AND WE WERE PROMISED BY THE LEADERS OF BOTH THE LABOUR GROUP,AT THAT TIME, AND THE LIB DEMS, THAT BURNLEY COUNCIL WOULD NOT COOPERATEWITH THE SALE OF LAND TO THE COUNTY COUNCIL.

BOTH LABOUR AND THE LIB DEMS HAVE RENEGED ON THEIR PROMISES AND ASSURANCES.

AGAIN THERE HAVE BEEN NO DISCUSSIONS ABOUT THE MATTER WITH THE RESIDENTS, IT IS ALL DONE BY DIKTAT OR FAIT ACCOMPLI.

THIS IS THE STATE OF LOCAL DEMOCRACY IN THIS AREA.

FIVE YEARS AGO DURING THE RIOTING IT WAS AGREED THAT THE CAUSE WAS A FAILURE IN LOCAL DEMOCRACY. LACK OF ADEQUATE REPRESENTATION AND LACK OF CONSULTATION.

NOTHING SEEMS TO HAVE CHANGED , IN 2006 WE ARE STILL IGNORED .DECISIONS ARE TAKEN OVER OUR HEAD AND WE ARE SUPPOSED TO SIMPLY TAKE A LEAD FROM THE BUREACRATS AND ROLL OVER ON OUR STOMACHS?

STOP NOW. DON'T DO IT!

SAVE TOWNELEY FOR THE PEOPLE.


BURNLEY VOICE LEAFLET .

[michele cryer]

Hi Mitch and Fred, thanks for your updates on the Towneley situation. I would like to include this issue in the B&P Voice and wonder which of these posts you would like me to use...for instance, one which gives a history of the Coucil's proposals to build on the land, and the reaction of residents, and one which brings us up to date (such as the last post by Fred), and a little conclusion added if necessary.

Please would you both take a look and direct me to the most suitable posts for this...tell me the date that the post was made and by whom, then I can copy/paste it into another document with the later post and a conclusion if either of you is okay to post one to me, please.

Also, if either of you know of any suitable features about the Hospital Campaign and its current situation, that you can copy/paste, email to me, I would try to include that in the B&P Voice too...

Thanks in advance

[Mitch]

Hey up, I'd say bob both of Fred's bits in.

Plus also, in another thread elsewhere on the forum I found some articles demonstrating a history of broken promises on Towneley - see below - maybe include these too.

Cheery cheers Mitch xx

BACK TO THE FUTURE
By Marcus Johnstone
(The Citizen/Lancs Evening Telegraph Weekly Newspaper, Thursday, 23rd April, 1992)

Historic Towneley Park may soon be changing with the times and moving into the twenty first century. A working party has been established to look at how the park should be developed into the next century.

Its members are quick to stress that none of the history or heritage associated with the park and Towneley Hall will alter.
And they say every effort will be made to find out what the people of Burnley want from Towneley Park whose history stretches back hundreds of years into the era before the industrial revolution.

Jane Yates, marketing officer with Burnley’s economic development unit, says people should not be scared off by the word ‘developed’.

‘By developed of course, we mean sympathetically and practically so that the the park remains in keeping with its era and all the history associated with the hall’, she said.

The working group is looking at issues including planning, the environment and Towneley’s natural history.

Other issues which are being put under the microscope by the working party are improvements to highways and better sports facilities at Towneley.

Added Jane Yates: ‘We want to ensure that Towneley Park stays true to its historical background.

But we also want it to be used to its fullest potential by Burnley people and by travelling tourists’.

In an effort to ensure that the public gets a say, members of the working party are planning a public meeting at the end of May.

DISCUSSED
The proposals which are being put forward will be formally unveiled at the meeting and assurances have been given that ideas for the park’s future will be fully discussed.

After the meeting has been held, a draft plan to take Towneley into the next century will be drawn up.
-----------------------------------------------------

Letters week ending January 6th 2006 (Burnley Express)
Fight to save these sites
- I WAS disappointed to read Coun. Stuart Caddy's letter in the Express regarding Building Schools for the Future.
Towneley Park is too important to the people of Burnley to be used as a political football for scoring party points. This is why I appealed to all Burnley borough councillors to show their backbone and stand up for Burnley against Lancashire County Council's plans to build Unity College (Towneley School) on lower Towneley Playing Fields.
The county council is applying to itself for outline planning permission for the whole of lower Towneley playing fields (15.8 hectares) to build a "two to three-storey building to accommodate 1,050 pupils … As well as providing a Learning Support Centre and City Learning Centre for the local community … The improvement of the existing sports pitches, new tennis and games courts. Due to its location it is proposed that the floor level of the new school building be raised above the surrounding land to reduce flood risk."
We welcome this chance to improve education for the future in Burnley but question the wisdom of three of the county council's chosen sites by rushing headlong into this. Obviously our main concern is with Towneley Park.
The proposed site is a large open space which is well used by the local community of Fulledge and Brunshaw, as well as those preferring to walk up to Towneley Hall through countryside rather than along the road. Children simply run and play, teenagers stroll and play cricket, football etc, while adults walk, enjoy the countryside/wildlife and exercise their dogs all within easy reach of extensive built-up areas. The county council maintains that losing this site will not be detrimental as it will return the current site to parkland. However, the current site is a narrow strip along the roadside and would not have the recreational advantages of the proposed site.
Also, the proposed site is between two marshland areas connected by a ditch which feeds the pond. There is abundant wildlife to be found here, including reed bunting, water voles, heron, coot and kingfisher, all of which would be disturbed not simply by the building but long term by 1,050 young people coming and going to the school four times a day.
Another concern is the increased possibility of flooding that disturbing the water table would have on nearby houses. The proposed site for building the school is on a marshy slope above surrounding houses in a flood plain, the county council's own surveyors said anyone would be mad to build on there. While the current site is also on the flood plain this has already been managed for many years and is below the surrounding houses.
Then there is the effect of increased traffic on the Fulledge area, especially Mitella Street, Culshaw Street, Mary Towneley Fold and Morse Street. The access road for the proposed school is via a new bridge and access road with a turning circle off Towneley Holmes Road. There does not appear to be any parking provision for dropping off and collecting the young people and as Holmes Road is set to become a clearway under the Heritage Lottery Fund plans with a traffic warden employed to enforce this, it is logical to expect more traffic on the surrounding streets of Fulledge to drop off students at the two proposed pedestrian access points in Darnley Street and Mary Towneley Fold. These streets are already unsuitable for the amount of traffic requiring access to local schools, houses and businesses and it would only be a matter of time before there is a serious accident besides the inconvenience to local residents.
The county council keeps repeating that there is no alternative site and the school cannot be built on the current site as the playing fields must be adjacent to the school buildings, however it proposes to build at least one of the other schools on a split site. It also says this would cause too much disruption for students, but again it proposes building on existing sites at other schools.
This is yet another issue when the people of Burnley need to stand up and be counted. Please take a few minutes as a New Year resolution to write a letter of opposition to this planning application.
l Write to Lancashire County Council Planning Department, PO Box 9, Guild House, Cross Street, Preston, PR1 8RD before January 13th explaining all the reasons why you are opposed to the plans;
l Write to John Prescott, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, Eland House, Bressenden Place, London SW1E 5DU before January 20th, explaining your opposition and asking for a public inquiry so Burnley people can be sure the decision is taken independently reflecting the will of Burnley, not by the county council granting planning permission to itself;
l Contact your borough councillors asking them to ask for a public inquiry and write to Burnley Borough Council Planning Department, in Parker Lane (as soon as possible as the Development Control Committee meeting to consider this planning application is on January 12th) stating your objections.
Let us show Lancashire County Council how important Towneley Park is to the people of Burnley.
MRS MARGARET NELSON
Chairman, Fulledge Action Community Team