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Campaigners who have spent the last year trying to block a revamp they say would have ruined their local park have reacted with delight to the news the contentious project has been ditched.
As the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) revealed, a planned overhaul of Preston’s Ashton Park has been cancelled in its current form – meaning a synthetic 3G pitch, sports pavilion and car park will no longer be built on the Pedders Lane site.
One of the founding members of the Fight for Ashton Park group, James Walmsley, says he is “absolutely over the moon”.
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He told the LDRS that he got involved in the campaign a matter of months after the death of his wife of more than 50 years, who had cherished the park that the couple’s home looks out across.
“Margaret really loved this place – my driving force [in trying to protect it] was her and indeed all the people who love the park. We could have moved many times, but we chose to stay here,” James added.
He also called for an inquiry into the way in which the £9.7m scheme – one of more than half a dozen improvement projects to be paid for with a share of the £20m awarded to Preston City Council from the government’s Levelling Up Fund – was handled.
Last year, a petition opposing the park plan garnered more than 2,200 signatures – and 80 percent of the more than 640 people who responded to a public consultation into the proposal came out against it.
Yet it was only on Tuesday evening, when members of the ruling Labour group on the authority met to discuss the financial pressures facing other Levelling Up Fund schemes in the city that the Ashton Park blueprint was dropped – with that element of the funding set to be transferred to other projects, subject to the approval of the government and full council.
“How much money has been wasted?” James asked.
Ann Cowell, chair of the Friends of Ashton Park group, hopes the change of heart also marks a change of approach from the authority, which has said it will still seek to create some new grass football pitches if alternative funding can be found.
“I hope they’re going to come and talk to the people, rather than just plough ahead – because we’ve got some ideas of our own.
“There are two grass pitches there now and there are also other sports to consider like cricket. It’s also about hosting events and maybe getting some fundraising going for environmental [work],” Ann explained..
However, a junior league football coach, told the LDRS that grassroots clubs like his are still “massively stretched” for playing and training space in Preston – the like of which would have been provided under the originally-envisaged scheme.
“It defeats the object of having an Ashton club when we’re playing in a Newton and having to look even further afield into the FY [postcodes] for somewhere to train, because we have so many teams,” said John Griffiths, who manages Springfields White under-12s.
“I understood the frustrations of those who didn’t want [the redevelopment], but I genuinely don’t think this is a good [outcome] for either party.
“The park is just going to end up unused when it’s wet and windy. There used to be matches there all the time, so if the council could maybe put some drainage in so that it would be usable for sports teams again, that would be good,” added John, who set up the group Yes to Ashton Park in support of he levelling up plans last year.
At one time, there were nine grass pitches on the site, but seven were removed because of waterlogging, the LDRS understands.
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