Published: Thursday, 27th November, 2008 12:30
BMX track nodded through despite protests
By Adam Hewitt
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THE BMX track planned for Earley got the final go-ahead last night amid angry debates which split the ruling party.
Earley town councillors voted for the Paddick Drive playing fields track by 15 votes to two, meaning it now goes to Wokingham Borough Council for planning approval to be built in the spring despite a hard-fought campaign by neighbours.
The track decision split the ruling Tories, two of whom voted against it - including Pauline Jorgensen, who chairs the town’s planning committee and is married to Norman Jorgensen, a fellow town councillor who also leads Wokingham borough’s children’s services department. He voted for the track last night.
Lib Dem leader Jenny Lissaman got loud cheers from the anti-BMX track campaigners when she said: “We don’t condone the way this whole process has been carried out, it has been secretive and biased. The public was banned from the initial discussions. This council no longer listens to what its residents want.
“This has been a case study in how not to do a consultation - it’s a textbook example of how to alienate the local community.”
But she was called “a hypocrite” by Tory amenities committee chairman Cllr David Chopping because she and the other Lib Dem present, Cllr Carol Mitchell, abstained from the final vote.
Cllr Chopping added: “There’s been a long debate about this issue, and the results of the consultation process have been well considered by the committee which unanimously recommended it.”
The anti-BMX track campaigners say the council chose the site first and then ran a sham consultation to justify it, that it will cause an increase in yobbish behaviour where there is currently little, and that it is unsafe to build a facility aimed at children and young teenagers so close to Lower Earley Way, which a council report once called “the most dangerous road” in the borough.
Anthony Vick of Wellington Grange residents' association spoke for the campaigners, and said: "The people who live near the site, those who currently use it and whose homes surround it, are universally opposed to the idea.
"Youth workers may be in favour of a track somewhere in Earley, but when asked to evaluate nine sites, they along with the police graded the other eight sites higher than Paddick.
"They anticipate the majority of users to come from Maiden Erlegh School, a school far away from Paddick Drive and for which our children are not in the catchment area.
"I feel anti-social behaviour is almost a forbidden phrase, but if the professionals believe it will come as a by-product of the track, as indicated in their written comments, then why shouldn't we?"
Other campaigners accused councillors of not listening to their arguments, but Cllr Matt Deegan said: “If you’d seen how many letters and emails I’ve been replying to over the summer, how much time I’ve spent and how many meetings I’ve had over this, you couldn’t accuse me of sweeping it under the carpet.”
He and council leader Chris Edmunds have held meetings with the residents’ associations fighting the track, and they say there will be new signs around Earley to stop children using Lower Earley Way to access the site.
They said the youth workers did now back the site, and that the consultation survey sent to more than 5,200 homes - which got 577 responses - showed nearly two-thirds of people in favour of it across Earley.
For the full story see Thursday’s Chronicle.
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