Alderley United Football Club have applied to lease the pitch which they currently use on Chorley Hall Lane to provide them with full time access. The recently formed club is the result of a merger between Alderley Nomads(AN) and Alderley Athletic Junior Football Club (AAJFC) and serves around 300 local boys and girls aged between 4 and 15.
AAJFC secured a 10 year lease on the Pavilion at Chorley Hall Lane in 2008 and since then have spent considerable time and money restoring the pavilion to provide a safe, dry and welcoming community asset to support junior football in the village.
Having already secured support from Cheshire East Council, George Osborne and the Cheshire FA, Alderley United FC have written to the Alderley Edge Parish Council to request their support for the application.
In a letter to the Parish Council, club chairman Jonathan Rowley explained that the club's objectives are "to improve the facilities of Chorley Hall Lane through sponsorship, grants and funding applications and to widen its use as a sporting and leisure facility for the young people in the village, which includes other multi sport use and all weather surfaces."
The pitch is currently underused and under maintained. It slopes badly at one end, suffers from poor drainage and isn't marked for junior football which means the matches are played with hastily arranged temporary markings.
Jonathan Rowley said "By taking over the maintenance of the pitch we can improve its condition, availability and usefulness to sport in the local area. At the club's cost we will improve the pitches condition through frequent mowing and mark it out for junior football. In the second year, having secured funding, our intention is to relay the pitch and improve the drainage and our long term goal is to move towards an all weather pitch enabling other healthy activities including running, cycling and other team sports to use the ground."
When Mr Rowley's request for support was discussed at this week's Parish Council meeting the general consensus was that the playing field was for the community and therefore a lease should not be issued to one private organisation.
Councillor Mary Maczkowiak said "What I object to is it becomes a closed area. I want people to be able to use all the facilities the council provides and not just an exclusive club." Councillor Matthew Lloyd added "I am not opposed to people using the field but not on an exclusive basis. Why do they need it to be exclusive?"
Serious concerns were also expressed regarding the club's future development plans because the councillors felt that Chorley Hall Lane had poor accessibility, parking issues and was not very good for pedestrians.
Councillor Mike Williamson raised the issue of the all weather sports pitch which was recently given the go ahead at the Ryleys playing fields on Wilmslow Road. Apparently at the planning committee meeting for this application it was intimated that they were prepared to open the site for the use of both local football teams, therefore Councillor Williamson said "It's not as if the village doesn't have a potential site, it's crazy that another team are trying to raise finance and competing for the same funds."
Councillor Keegan added " I'm only in favour of transferring assets locally if it's to an elected body. If there is an issue with the kids not getting enough access to the field then we'll look in to it but a public piece of land ought to be kept public."
It was decided that the Parish Council would respond to Jonathan Rowley expressing their concerns and inviting him to come and have a chat with them.
Let us know your view via the comment box below. Should Alderley United Football Club be granted a 10 year lease or should the playing field on Chorley Hall Lane remain in public use?
Comments
Here's what readers have had to say so far. Why not add your thoughts below.
This is in stark contrast to pitches in Salford, Irlam, Eccles etc.
Whatever the outcome is, the community needs good quality football pitches for use by local residents.
1. What other clubs and organisations use the pitch on a regular basis and
2. How do they propose to bring the pitches up to an acceptable standard?
1) We would welcome the opportunity to come and talk to the PC, Jonathan or myself will attend. As we believe we can answer all the concerns expressed above.
2) The playing surface is very poor and gets little/no attention from its current owners. So our objective is to improve it for all sports people in the village. But we can/will only do this if the lease is granted.
3) I don't believe we mentioned exclusive use anywhere in our paper work. So I don't understand why that has been referenced above?
4) We don't believe any other sports club currently use CHL.
5) The Timperley league would not allow us to play league matches on the new Hockey astro pitch, this could only be used for training.
6) The parking is slightly a red herring, as we already play all our games here, whether we have the lease or not. But we would be keen to discuss how parking could be improved, if we had the lease, and therefore permission, to improve the facility.
As it stands I do not see anyone else using the field and it will remain so unless it is improved. I am not familiar with the football teams plans other than what is on this page but I doubt that them taking the lease would preclude it being used by others.
I do however appreciate why those that are willing to voluntarily put a lot of hard work and money into improving the facility want a degree of security so that they don't find in a years time the council wants to turn the field into allotments or something.
So the decision seems to be - maintain the status-quo and have a poor quality facility that is under used, or let a group of enthusiastic local residents improve the facility. I know what I would prefer.
I would also like to add that I would have much preferred the £89,195, that we pay through our council tax to the Parish Council, that is getting spent on the Festival Hall to have been spent on initiatives such as this. After all, it is local children that will benefit from improvements to the field and pavilion whereas I suspect many of the people that book the Festival Hall are from outside the village.