Not content with taking away many of the town's facilities, Scarborough Borough Council has now chosen the playing areas for the town's youngsters as justifiable targets with their plans to build social housing on Helredale Playing Field and the small parcel of land which includes the play equipment between Helredale and St Peter's Road.
Locals raised loud voices in protest against the proposals at a recent meeting of Helredale Neighbourhood Council and we are all now appealing to every resident of Streonshalh ward to support us by attending one of the information sessions arranged b
y SBC and objecting.
We ask this because SBC has chosen to consult the whole of the ward, not just the area affected, deliberately we think, because they believe the residents of Church Street, Green Lane and Eskdale Park will not bother to turn up and object as it doesn’t affect them.
We say deliberately because if only those of us who live in the immediate area object to it then SBC can claim only a small percentage of the Streonshalh residents oppose the plans and the rest, albeit by default, agree with them.
This is grossly unfair, but then it is what we have come to expect from Scarborough Borough Council, the debacle of the marina consultation being a prime example.
The following list states just a few of the reasons why we should all object, some of which are facts and figures taken from the council’s own strategy documents:
l it is a widely held belief that Helredale Playing Field is covenanted to remain a playing field
l Streonshalh ward has the fourth highest percentage of children under 16 years in the borough, 22.5% which is the highest in Whitby yet they plan to build on our two well-used and safe play areas.
l SBC’s audit of Parks and Open Spaces (POS) shows Whitby has a paltry 44.3 square metres of POS per person compared with 87.1 in Scarborough and 75.7 in Filey – so SBC wants to build on virtually all the open spaces in the town eventually as its choice of 17 sites proves.
l the index of multiple deprivation identifies the borough as being in the worst 20% in the country, Streonshalh is one of the sites falling into this category – so SBC want to cause more deprivation!
l SBC’s own objectives statements include those that state there should be opportunities for everyone to play ...
The full article contains 420 words and appears in Whitby Gazette Tuesday newspaper.
