Comment by Yateley Society (PJT) 15 Nov 2005

John's review of the informal and formal sports provisions in Yateley is excellent and continues the tradition of input to Town/Parish Plans started in 1981 by the now defunct Yateley Sports Council. It very clearly demonstrates the advances made in formal provision since 1981.

The Steering Group must now develop a strategy for Sport & Leisure for the Parish Plan. The methodology adopted for spatial planning can be also applied here:

Constraints

Planning methodology tells us to look for environmental, economic and social constraints. John's paper informs us that there is still a capacity constraint caused by the number of sports facilities, lack of finance, and limits on voluntary and paid manpower. The limiting capacity of existing sports grounds and buildings can only be relieved by building completely new facilities or by using other facilities which might be not in use when other users may wish to use them. An example might be the use of school playing fields at times when the

school is not using them for school activities. Building completely new outdoor facilities depends on the availability of land. The current review of land availability by the Spatial Planning Team indicates that new sites are unlikely to become available except perhaps at Sandhurst Road (DEV 21 and DEV 22 in the Adopted Plan).

Previous experience has demonstrated that finance is unlikely to be a constraint if a well argued and fully costed proposal is put forward. The main problem is the provision of finance for on-going maintenance, and for paid manpower to supplement volunteers. Volunteers are always going to be a scarce commodity in this increasingly frenetic world with its emphasis on health & safety and so on.

John mentions that Yateley Common is a favourite 'haunt of ramblers and other walkers'. Informal recreational uses can conflict with international biodiversity objectives. The Yateley Common Management Plan seeks to balance conflicting objectives. However international biodiversity directives act as a legal constraint on many forms of recreation: formal, informal, commercial or even illegal

Key Issues

From the analysis of the Constraints it is apparent that there are several Key Issues which might then lead to the development of some Policies for Sport & Leisure

Options

Having determined all the KeyIssues, of which the above list may only form part, a number of options can be devised to address the issues. This is best done by specialists in the topic, and then presented to the Steering Group for approval. Should the options be contoversial best practice will neccessitate presenting the options to the general public to determine their preferred option.

Policies

Having determined the optimal way forward to address the issues then the Parish Plan will adopt a final conclusion. This could be termed a 'policy' or 'strategy' or perhaps an 'objective', or even an 'action plan'.

Commercial Leisure Provision

John's paper mainly deals with those formal and informal sports and leisure activities which have traditionally been provided by local government with the help of volunteer support, or are available freely, or for a small fee, to the general public. Other Commercial leisure and recreational activities are provided by many operators outside the Yateley settlement boundary. Some of these facilities are restricted to particular clubs, and some might be beyond the pocket of the average Yateley resident. Some might need to be subjected by the Parish Plan to the same scrutiny of Constraints - Issues - Policies as has been outlined above for public sports provision

Move back to Sport and Leisure

Move on to: Commercial Leisure Activities in Yateley