Questionnaire shows opposition to park driving range

Residents have voiced their objections to plans for a golf driving range at Springfield Park in a questionnaire which was part of the Visioning Day into the park's future, held in April.
The results of the questionnaire have now been released and it seems that local people are united in opposition to the driving range.

In the section marked 'other comments', 67% of people who completed the questionnaire on the day voiced their objection to the driving range, while a further 58% of those that completed the questionnaire after the visioning day said they did not want a golf driving range in the park.

Residents believe that the park should be open to everyone and that the loss of land to a driving range would exclude a lot of general users. Instead they want the council to improve the exisiting football and cricket pitches at the park.

One resident said that the driving range will make the park 'look like a prison' with 'ugly fences'. People mentioned that Rochdale already had enough golfing facilities, with the driving ranges in Castleton and Bowlee. One person even said that Rochdale Council should do what the people want, and not what it wants.

In total 386 complete questionnaires were returned to the council. A total of eighty people said that the activity that they enjoyed most in the park was either football or cricket, which were by far the most popular activities ahead of athletics and tennis, and improvements to the games pitches was the most popular idea for new sporting facilities at the park.

The absence of a golf driving range was even mentioned as one of the key things which make a park worth visiting, while 15 people said that no more golfing developments would actually be the most important single improvement that the park could make.