Randwick Playing Fields - the future?

Last night was the annual meeting of Randwick Parish Council where the key issue for discussion was the playing field. Residents were invited to comment on proposals...

New changing rooms; the Village Hall Committee is working on this - they have £15k but need another £90k - they have identified some hopeful funding routes - the rooms are much needed as you can have 30 footballers and managers in that one tiny backroom.....!!

Level a new pitch; see photos left of area to right of football pitch - this is a proposal to level an area of ground that is not really used - there is a real shortage of pitches in the Stroud area - next step is to find out poss costs and take some initial samples - can it be done very cheaply with just a digger and volunteers? The area is relatively flat but would need a fair bit of earth moving....?? Certainly there was agreement in the room to explore options.

More car parking; this was the big issue - last night there were some 20 cars accommodated relatively easily on the edge of the field (see photo) - however at several times each week it has been estimated that 60 cars are parked. They are sometimes 3 deep and it has led to damage to the fields...in particular the turning circle and an area that the Village Playing Field had attempted to save with plastic material.....what are options...many thousands of pounds would be needed to deal with matter properly and grants are not usually available for parking.....would Parish Council pay? It seems unlikely as to raise the precept by 10% would gain less than £2k...they just don't have the money but maybe they could lead the project or contribute something?

And where? Many were against parking outside the area between the road and the fenced play area - one said she didn't want to see it become a massive car park - others thought the grass at the side of the road coming down to teh hall could be used.....Other options are to bus people to games ie park elsewhere....not ideal....other options would be to charge for parking....local residents use the field free at the moment.....would other residents be happy to pay to build a car park for private residents? It seems unlikely folk at the other end of the Parish would approve? Yet we need a solution - could an extra charge be made to groups using the hall and field? Or permits? Much was discussed but no decisions - more work is clearly needed....is there some cheap solution that would do?

Metal container; the people using the field need safer storage - the proposal was for a container near the existing shed (photo right on left) or down by sugar hole (photo left - see flags) - at the moment alot of expensive stuff cannot be stored on site. At the meeting people favoured sugar hole - my point was that it needs to have a condition that it is screened by planting - a point that others had also made.

Benches; an issue I raised was that there is still not enough seating - the committee will look at this. It is great to see the extra seating in the play area - see left.

Community orchard; I raised this as a possibility for the fields but there seems little interest at the moment - poss more if a group came forward - I also cited the example of a car park in Germany that was planted with heritage trees to disguise the cars but also to make better use of space - is this a possibility?

Allotments; regular readers will know we previously very nearly got an allotment site in a corner of the field - sadly the Parish pulled out at the last minute - at the moment there is not enough residents pushing for this....

Next step is more talking but useful to hear views and explore the possibilities.....it would be great to increase the use of the fields...