Notes from Woodbury Field Focus Group to Establish Community Support - - PDF document

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Notes from Woodbury Field Focus Group to Establish Community Support for Pump track/Skate facilities Date: Monday 20 January 2020, 8pm Venue: St Stephen Parish Council (SSPC), Parish Centre, Station Road Bricket Wood AL2 3PJ Present:

• 4 out of 6 District Ward Councillors (David Winstone, David Yates, Sue

Featherstone, Syed Abidi)

• 3 Parish Councillors (David Parry, David Yates, Bill Pryce)
• 19 members of local community inc reps from BWRA, Scouts, MPL PTA,

Marlborough Club Trails

• 3 members of SSPC staff (Sue Hake, Isabel Crozier, Mat Huddleston)

Notes on the proceedings: Presentation slides attached. Overarching aims for Woodbury Field project

• A welcoming place
• A clean and well maintained space
• A place to be active
• A place to develop skills
• An inclusive space

Session aim: Woodbury Field has £97,000 of Section 106 funding allocated to enhance leisure facilities there. The purpose of the session is to demonstrate community support for the allocated funds to be invested in a cycle/scoot/skate facility Research Teenage recommendations to improve physical activity for their age group: https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-018-5274-3 Many teenagers are insufficiently active. A major barrier facing adolescents is accessibility (e.g. cost and lack of local facilities). https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-017-4554-7 Shown that girls drop out of physical activity at around the time they go to secondary school. Local Support Suzanne Dolan and Gary Sims have set up an online petition which has been shared

• n local groups’ Facebook pages. They have gained 440 signatures and not had any

messages of resistance so far. https://www.change.org/p/st-albans-council-woodbury-fields-cycle-skate-scoot-facility

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The Mount Pleasant Lane School head teacher has noticed a rise in the numbers of children cycling to school over the last few years. The school have agreed to host a modular pump track for the summer fete. Park Street School promote active travel with wheelie Wednesdays and striders badges for those regularly walking to school. Attendees thought Park Street School would be keen to be involved in this initiative. Participants were asked: What free facilities are there in the parish for children over 9 years of age? Surfaced basketball court at Woodbury Field but was mentioned that no nets and fencing meant that it gets little use. No other facilities were mentioned. What free facilities are there in the parish for children under 9 years of age? Participants named the 6 play area in the parish, Mayflower Road, Park Street Rec, North Close, Cherry Hill and Greenwood Park and Woodbury Field. What would you and your children like about a cycle/skate/scoot facility in Bricket Wood?

• My 14 and 9 year olds find parks too babyish so this would be something for

them

• Build stamina and test them – get them ready for riding on the road
• Non-competitive physical activity
• If they can manage the pump track they can manage the roads and pavement

physically

• It’s somewhere to meet, both for the kids and the parents
• It’s where they can learn skills safely
• Use of currently ‘dead’ space
• It’s all-weather so can still go in the winter – some tracks are not surfaced and

must be closed in the winter

• Good examples of all-weather tracks – Fleet and Haverhill, both made by

Clark and Kent Contractors

• Spreading good practice like wearing helmets

What might encourage children to try these activities?

• Providing lessons initially – could be funded from a different source, s106

couldn’t fund outreach, best facility could be provided for s106 money. Alternative funding for lessons Eg HCC Locality Budget

• Involve the schools, scout and guide associations etc
• Sharing skills between more experienced riders to those learning (happens at

the Pioneer Club)

• Having different parts of pump track for differing skill levels. Eg young children

and beginners using gentle rollers, developed skill levels jumping table tops and tackling, burns doing more technical tricks What benefits might a cycle/skate/scoot facility have for the environment?

• Build confidence in riding /scooting – enabling parents to have the confidence

to allow their children to ride to school and cycle for local journeys – change of mindset

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• Have a knock on effect – if kids riding more pester power means parents will

have to use bikes more

• People will realise that its just as quick ride to school and not have to fight for

a parking space

• Reduce emissions - positive impact on levels of air pollution and parking

problems at MPL school Inclusive Family Space Are there low-cost ways of providing opportunities for a wider range of users?

• trim trails
• interpretation of nature features
• links to Blackgreen Wood – improving surface of paths
• scavenger hunts
• fairy doors
• bug hotels
• gym bars and parkour appeal more to girls

Skate elements

• Tends to contain a lot of concrete. Minimum W Ramp featuring 2 quarter

pipes, 2 roller and a spine ramp, a concrete straight walkway down the edge would provide somewhere for very young scooters and a couple of raised platforms to do tricks

• Small enough that people won’t travel from far afield to use it – keeping it local
• Have parkour elements close to encourage integration of sexes
• £35 – 40K
• Ensure surfaced paths linking basketball court, pump track and skate

elements

• Option 2 provided by Clark and Kent not suitable as expensive, a large area

and likely that fewer people can use as they will bump into each other How might we tackle common misconceptions of antisocial behaviour around providing facilities for teenagers?

• Youths meet here anyway at least they will have something to do which might

stop anti-social behaviour

• Can site the track away from the houses in the top right-hand corner
• PCSOs are supportive of the idea
• Significant police data to suggest these activities actually reduce antisocial

behaviour

• Will enable different ages to mix and share skills – builds community

Potential negatives/complications/considerations

• No parking for Woodbury Field and this may cause an issue – wherever the

investment goes on is likely to bring more people to the park. This at least encourages use of bikes and therefore use of bikes to travel to the park. Not likely to be a draw for people travelling from afar

• Insurance – this would be added to the Parish Council insurance. The Parish

Council would be covered for public liability where the parish were at fault, eg

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equipment was broken and caused an accident. There isn’t insurance for accidents where the parish council or manufacturer is not at fault – this is the same for play equipment. The parish council will need to increase their insurance to cover the new facility.

• Drainage – the field is very wet and S106 funding cannot be spent on

improving drainage. The play area is very wet already and something needs to be done to address this and for the new facility

• Life span – Can get guarantees but costs reflect length of this. Should last

ten years at least. Parish would need to increase rolling replacement fund for play facilities to accommodate need for future maintenance

• Lighting – no plans to have lighting as this would eat heavily into the budget
• Noise – sited in corner away from houses
• Expectation in the community to use Leisure funding on upgrading play

equipment – could be done over a longer period with smaller funding streams

• S106 funding for younger play equipment must be spent within 400m and

therefore may not be used to update current equipment. Next Steps

• Further investigations, consultation and development of proposals
• Further fund raising?
• Following the submission to SADC of a proposal, 6 district ward councillors,

portfolio holder and chief exec officer consider the proposals and decide if s106 funding should be spent on the project.

28/01/2020 1 St Stephen Parish Council – Woodbury Open Space Focus Group

Woodbury Field Play Park

Cycle/Skate/Scoot/facility proposal

Introduction

• Suzanne Dolan
• Gary Sims

Introduction: Ambition Isabel Crozier

A welcoming place A clean & well maintained space A place to be active A place to develop skills An inclusive space

Woodbury Field Focus Group

• Session Aim:
• Woodbury field play area has been allocated

£97K for redevelopment

• The purpose of the session is to demonstrate

community support for the allocated funds to be invested in a Cycle/Skate/Scoot facility. We would like to propose that the £97K currently allocated is awarded to a skate/scoot/cycle/ facility with a trim trail for younger children

Local Support

• We launched an online

petition that has been distributed via local schools and parish council Facebook groups.

• We have gained over 450

signatures.

• Remarkably, there have been

no messages of resistance!

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28/01/2020 2 St Stephen Parish Council – Woodbury Open Space Focus Group

What free facilities are there locally for children over 9? What free facilities are there locally for 0-8 children?

What would you and your children like about a Skate/Scoot/ Cycle/ facility in Bricket Wood?

What might encourage children to try these activities If they’ve not tried it before?

What benefit might initial free cycle/skate/scoot coaching, if built into the overall costs, have

• n the community?

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28/01/2020 3 St Stephen Parish Council – Woodbury Open Space Focus Group

How do you think this facility might encourage children and families out of their cars for local journeys? How do you think it will have a positive impact on the local the air pollution and parking problems outside MPL school at school drop off and pick up?

Making the space be more inclusive

How might we incorporate more green space into this design that might engage the wider community in this facility and increase environmental awareness

What benefit might this facility have on long term environmental impact for the community?

How might we tackle common misconceptions of antisocial behavior around providing facilities for teenagers?

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28/01/2020 5 St Stephen Parish Council – Woodbury Open Space Focus Group

The below W RAMP (design 1) would cost around £35-40k. It features 2 x quarter pipes, 2 rollers and a spine ramp.

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28/01/2020 6 St Stephen Parish Council – Woodbury Open Space Focus Group

Summary

• What key themes that have arisen from this proposal?
• Do we agree there is enough support for a cycle/skate/scoot facility to

move to the next stage of consultation?

• If yes, can we progress to design consultation?
• If no, what does that support have to look like?
• What other elements should be included? Benches/Trim Tails/Fairy

Garden/Scavenger hunt?

• If further funding is required, can the project be phased so that an

agreed element can proceed when the 106 monies becomes available?

Understanding Climate Change

Monday 3rd February 19:30-21:30

The Parish Centre, Station Road, Bricket Wood, St Albans AL2 3PJ What can we do to prevent the worst impacts of climate change?

Presentation by Sustainable St Albans Carbon Literacy trainer Suzanne Dolan Bringing community together Free event but please book ticket with Eventbrite

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/understanding-climate-change-tickets-87062096073

“A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.”

Community Tree Planting Mount Pleasant Lane School March 29th 10:00-12:00 All Welcome Bring a trowel

Thank you

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