Springfield Park driving range plans put to Council

Ian Duckworth (right) with Eddie Schenk, a park user of Thirlmere Road Castleton, pointing out the planning application for the driving range currently on display outside the park. "The tiny notice pictured is all the information some people will get," said Mr Duckworth.

Controversial plans for a golf driving range at Springfield Park have been put to Rochdale Council's planning department.

Link4Life, the council's arms length management organisation for sport and leisure, is seeking planning permission for the driving range, which would include 30 single storey driving bays, a 10-15 metre high perimeter fence or netting and floodlighting.

The decision to go ahead with planning permission was apparently made at a behind-closed doors informal council cabinet meeting.

The move to seek planning permission has angered the Park's Friends group, which has campaigned against the driving range since the ideas were first put forward.

The plans are now on display at the park and are available on request at the Town Hall. All planning applications are normally available for public viewing on the Council's website but an IT fault has meant that no applications have been put online over the past week; a problem the Council hopes to resolve this week.

A spokesperson for the Friends of Springfield Park said: "It appears that the LibDem cabinet has totally ignored the findings of the Vision Day on 18 April, arranged very professionally by Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council, which demonstrated overwhelmingly that the people of Rochdale wholeheartedly rejected the taking of 12 acres of park out of regular, public, majority use in order to build a Golf Driving Range for a minority group of users.

"The Friends of Springfield Park assert that the LibDem cabinet has failed to openly respond to the clear and unequivocal results of that Vision Day. Instead, they appear to have retreated into their bunker and are now apparently making secret, undemocratic decisions that cannot be scrutinised."

Former Conservative Councillor Ian Duckworth, who has worked with the Friends group, is concerned that not enough people will see the plans or have a chance to voice their opinions.

He said: "Springfield Park needs to be a special case where planning is concerned. Its users come from all over Rochdale and Heywood so the normal consultation that is designed for housing and people in the immediate vicinity will not suffice.

"We recently had a case of flawed consultation in Bamford Ward and the Council pledged that lessons had been learned, so they need to be even more aware of public anxiety over this irreplaceable green space than before.

"There will be no excuses this time. I suggest that the area encompassed by the addressees who attended the Vision Day be the criteria and all the people from these locations are written to with details of the planning application and their views sought and fully considered.

"The park belongs to the people of the borough, it should be their voice that has the final say."

The planning application is dated 17 September, so people have until Thursday 8 October to make their opinions known to the Council's Head of Planning and Regulation.