Whitworth Park

hey got an email back about whitworth park, how should we reply?

Hi Stephen

Thanks for your recent email regarding the ball court at Whitworth Park.
My name is Ria Page and I am the Park Warden for the Moss Side Area, I have also spoken to Woody Faulkner about this site and his interest in the site for the use of Bike Polo, he did give me his email address but i cannot find it on my system, please can you pass the information along to him and ask him to contact me if he requires anything further.

Leisure Services have recently removed the slippery surface known as wetpour and have scraped and swept the tarmac underneath in the existing ball court area. As far as we are aware this is the only surface works that has or is going to happen at present.
The friends of Whitworth Park along with myself have recently written a management plan for the whole park and the redevelopment of the court is included in the plan.
The plan is designed so that the partners using and managing Whitworth Park reach the same ideas / goal as to what the next 5 years should achieve. Nothing in the plan is permanent and no details have been decided about any of the projects.
Ken Shone (Chairman of the Friends of Whitworth Park) has contacted your club recently to find out the extent of the use and what requirements the club would need as It would not be in anyone's best interest to propose to redevelop an area that is already being used without consultation.

So this is our way forward:

We would like to invite any of the Bike Polo Team Representatives along to a meeting where we can discuss the future of the site and how the Bike Polo Team / Club could get involved.
There is also information you will need to know about the development happening at the Whitworth Art Gallery and how their extension impacts around the area of the park where the ball court is currently situated.
I have answered the questions below as best as i could for now because as i mentioned above no project or development has been finalised as of yet and it would be best to revisit these questions again at a later date.

My questions are:

Will the Brick walls be left round the court? (this is preferable to us)
This is undecided. The project will be discussed and consultation will take place with regular users, the friends group and our Play Development Team. This will be a partnership decision.

will Football goals/basket ball nets be installed? (this would not be preferable to us)
Again this is undecided, However given that the new natural play area is in the same area as the ball court added feature may well be something that could be asked for in the consultation, is there a compromise the club are willing to accept in this case?

will the floodlights be fixed and operate in the evenings?
The introduction of flood lighting has to be maintained by Leisure Services and at present there is currently no money to sustain the lighting if it was to be fixed. Other parks have looked into alternative solar lighting but this is by no means to the standard set by Sport England for sports sites.
The Solar lighting is something that could be looked into when the project is proposed in the future if this is decidedly what the partners agree.

I have read about the Gates being locked at 8pm, will this mean no use of the court after 8pm?
when work is expected to be completed?
The introduction of closing times will mean that the court is only available when the park is open as the lighter nights are progressing the locking times are pushed back, therefore the closing of the park should not affect the use of the court during daylight hours.

Any questions you can answer or any visuals of how a Multi Use Games Area in Whitworth park will look and consist of would be greatly appreciated
Again the project is yet to get to this point, our initial meeting along with some consultation will help and influence contractors designs at a later date.

If you have any queries please do not hesitate to contact me on the below telephone number.

Kind Regards

Ria Page

awesome, we can ask these question at the meeting I guess. We should reply asking for a date to have a meeting. I'd love to attentend, also I think it's a good idea to have Mr. K there

I was wondering whether we'd been foprgotten about.
Does anyone know who the Friends of Whitworth Park approached? Neil?
Looking quite promising, and nothing is set in stone which is great. I think we just need to put our point across that our p[riority at the moment is a playable surface. They don't seem to be wanting to rebuild the whole place at the moment, so if we could just have a court we can playon untill then at least then it is win win?
Im also up for going to the meeting but don't mind if i don't

oh, I had a meeting with the group applying for funding last month. I agreed to send them some stuff to help their application. I mentioned that there were other polists that would want to use it.

Hey Nes who is the other group applying for funding and for what sport?

Also Nes have you spoken to the Friends of Whitworth Park? they said they had contaced us but havn't, so guessed it must be you?

Yeah the group applying for funding is the friends and that's who i met. they are L O V E L Y. meant to chat to one of you about it but didn't bump into anyone + thought there was no point til we'd gone a bit further with the funding process.

hi,

I have been asked to attend a meeting on the 13th of April at 11am, i can take the morning off work and attend who else can make it? there were suggestions of neil and Adam and chan attending if poss?

we need to write up a list of options we would like to see and maybe do some research into the names of different surfaces so that we know what there suggesting

yo,

please let me know who can attend this

I'd offer to, but gotta do someones test

iv booked the morning off work, Think Adam is available, we don't need loads of people

Im just going to take this picture along and say 'this please'

i cant get that day off work

Should be able to make this if required.

that would be great neil, il chat to you tonight

does anyone else want to attend this? Just me and Neil at the moment

Any news on how the meeting went...?

Good reception by the area parks warden (Moss Side and Whalley Range) and the representative of Friends of Whitworth. They'd done their homework and knew we were regular users of the court - even had a photo of Ste on file!

We gave them a basic background - what polo is; how it's expanding nationally and globally (likening it to skateboarding/BMX - in that it's a fast growing urban sport). We explained that city facilities are holding us back - critically the surface and walls (and to a lesser extent - spectator provision). They know we are regular users of Powerhouse, also in their area.

They told us that much of the park development is synchronised to the expansion of the Whitworth Gallery, although not in any way financially linked. The gallery focus will be drawn to where the back of the gallery is now, with a new atrium and garden entrance overlooking the existing court. Hence the refresh. The current walls will go - they are considered an eyesore and attract random spray can attacks.

As the only regular sporting group they knew of, this was a timely meeting to advise on the facility that would suit us - we specified the asphalt surface (apparently the previous surface had been down over 30 years), steel plating surrounds (a la Newington's boards), low spectator fencing on at least one side and spectator seating (similar to the new seating in the Adventure zone now). Entrance would be at either end via the recessed goals (like Platt Fields) - no gates. They may even be a plaque... Lights are a no go, maybe solar at a push.

All funding is via bid - there is no cash investment waiting to be spent today. Going forward we are to support them in an overall bid for various park developments by supplying statistics on our usage and a description of polo (as we delivered today). We offered to assist with opening tournaments and demonstrations - again well received.

In practical terms - I wouldn't count on seeing a tangible benefit this year. Roll on 2012 though!

Over to Ste for his take on proceedings.

sorry to interject but at this point it would be very very much worthwhile talking to Jono about getting funding for your court. I know he has an LHBPA pack that he is happy to send out to people with all the polo friendly contacts in the UK. The Crumpler contact also might be able to help you guys raise money for it.

sorry to butt in but that shit sounds pretty awesome

They were really positive, basically they need us as much as we need them in the way that they want the best facilities for Whitworth and to get the funding for them they need to show that groups like us will use them.

The art gallery is being extended back a little way with a new entrance and fancy cafe being made that will almost over look the end of the court, this should make the whole area pretty nice an a better place to hang out.

I think what we will end up with eventually is a large version of platt field park with foot high metal round the bottom so the ball dosnt get caught, they also said we could have square fence posts to maximize cleanness of the edges where the ball runs

All in all good stuff, like Neil said, i can see anything happening in the near future but who knows maybe by next summer we will have a wicked court built, i can also see it getting very busy once its made but we will cross that bridge when we come to it

We/they also agreed that they would circulate the polo details we are compiling to the other area wardens - so we have an identity and presence across the regions parks. This would be helpful in busy parks such as Chorlton.

They mentioned that only Whitworth of all the parks has any likelihood of investment in the near future.

Ben - in this case funding would be handled by them in conjunction with other bids they are making for the park, including archaeological digs, looks like it goes through the Heritage/Lottery process.

I'd still be interested in getting the pack with a view to establishing a Cambridge style solution through private enterprise.

Manchester needs as many options on the go as possible.

A next step is to evaluate where Arcadia are up to with their enforced 'privatisation' - the new management group will surely be welcoming of another user group. Anyone want to pursue this?

Re. BC - should Manchester leave this for LH to continue into next year?

sounds cool, I don't mind checking out arcadia sometime as long as we've done a polo meeting 1st and i'm briefed on what i'm doing

Re. BC - should Manchester leave this for LH to continue into next year?

yes

ste and neil, that's really good work!
as ben says, the LHBPA people have ready made material, to show people who haven't heard of it that polo does have numbers playing it and is not likely to disappear soon