Bowling News
There is a new development in the threat to the future of park greens in Huddersfield which remains very much of interest to local bowlers and in particular to the teams based at Greenhead Park. Kirklees Council have indicated that they will be opening up a public consultation with bowling clubs in the near future. They expect such arrangements to be made in the next 2 weeks.
In addition below there is a second piece of written communications forwarded on by Coun Cahal Burke from an internal query.
Our earlier posting about Greenhead Park's concerns manifests from information provided to them and correspondence with local councillors. At that time they were told to prepare themselves for the worst. In preparation for 'the worst' the Greenhead Park club has made an appeal to other local bowling clubs to offer them a lifeline through the HuddWeb website.
They have received three offers of help to date from other local clubs and are considering them but only as a backstop solution in the event of Kirklees Council withdrawing green maintenance services. Their preference is to remain at Greenhead Park which has been their home for 97 years but are grateful for the support of other bowing clubs and the options which have been placed before them.
The latest correspondence received yesterday by the Greenhead Park club indicates that arrangements for the public consultation will be made with 'registered bowling clubs' in the next two weeks and is reproduced in full below
Good afternoon,
Once again, we'd like to thank you for getting in touch with us on this matter. We understand how important the maintenance of Kirklees bowling greens are to you and your respective clubs.
Senior management officers have deliberated this week regarding our plans with bowling green maintenance going forward, and I can confirm the Parks department will be commencing a public consultation with all registered clubs over the next few weeks. No further action is needed from yourself at this time - we will contact you directly regarding this.
As it stands, we absorb a significant number of costs relating to bowling green maintenance, to the tune of tens of thousands of pounds. Club admissions and registrations cover a very small percentage of the overall costs in maintenance of the 14+ sites across the district. This has presented concerns around how to efficiently balance the needs of our greens against the revenue generated towards these needs. This is something we are actively investigating, and you will have the option to voice your concerns and gain further information on the specifics of points referenced in this email.
You can expect further contacts on this matter to be issued directly - we expect this to be done within the next fortnight.
Regards,
Oliver Kelly
Business Support Officer
Streetscene
Vine Street
Huddersfield HD1 2EY
It is unclear how any change in services might affect the other parks-based teams in Huddersfield. This includes Ravensknowle Park which has teams in the Huddersfield Veterans League and the Heavy Woollen League. The Ravensknowle Park club may be in a different situation as they have undertaken the bulk of the weekly green maintenance work themselves but using parks equipment. This practice has been in place for a number of years.
The Greenhead Park club does not feel that this is a model that they could follow with an ageing club membership who could struggle to undertake all the duties included in such an arrangement.
The second piece of written communication comes from Cllr Cahal Burke who passes on an emailed internal response statement to a query he raised. Again it is reproduced in full.
We have just completed a service review that has removed £1.3m of resources to balance budgets and live within our means and the team have been working through several options on how we can support Bowling moving forward.
We have yet to finalise what the future model on is Bowling, which at present we receive £7.25 per annual pass. These are fine turf surfaces that require a lot of specialist treatments, as a result we rely on external contractors to deliver a lot of the maintenance.
Overall, we only receive £1-2k per year income and this means the sport is costing the service £90k per year to provide, for 308 players. Interestingly we have no bowlers paying for any annual pass at Greenhead Park, and only 15 for croquet. The next step is the team will be contacting each bowling group to have an open discussion about the future,#
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