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

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 on local groups’ Facebook pages. They have gained 4 40 signatures and not had any messages of resistance so far. https://www.change.org/p/st-albans-council-woodbury-fields-cycle-skate-scoot-facility Page 1 of 4

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 Page 2 of 4

• 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 Page 3 of 4

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. Page 4 of 4

St Stephen Parish Council – Woodbury Open Space Focus Group 28/01/2020 Woodbury Field Play Park • Suzanne Dolan Introduction • Gary Sims Cycle/Skate/Scoot/facility proposal 1 2 Introduction: Ambition Isabel Crozier • Session Aim: Woodbury • Woodbury field play area has been allocated Field Focus A welcoming A clean & well A place to be £97K for redevelopment place maintained space active Group • The purpose of the session is to demonstrate community support for the allocated funds to be invested in a Cycle/Skate/Scoot facility. A place to An inclusive develop skills space 3 4 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. We would like to propose that the £97K currently allocated is awarded to a skate/scoot/cycle/ facility with • Remarkably, there have been a trim trail for younger children no messages of resistance! 5 6 1

St Stephen Parish Council – Woodbury Open Space Focus Group 28/01/2020 7 8 What free facilities are there locally for children over 9? What free facilities are there locally for 0-8 children? 9 10 What would you and your children like about a Skate/Scoot/ Cycle/ facility in Bricket Wood? What benefit might initial free cycle/skate/scoot coaching, if built into the overall costs, have on the community? What might encourage children to try these activities If they’ve not tried it before? 11 12 2