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Residents send builders packing




A group of Wash Common residents were shocked to find builders preparing to build a playground on their doorstep

A GROUP of Wash Common residents sent town council builders packing after they realised a new playground was to be built on their doorstep, without them ever having been consulted.

Mandy Dyson, of Middle Close, was at home last Thursday when she saw a man measuring the green space in front of her house and after going outside to enquire about it she was shocked to be told that he was preparing to start building a new tarmaced basketball and football facility yards from her front door.

Mrs Dyson promptly made phone calls to her neighbours, none of whom were aware of the basketball court plans, and set up a meeting with her council representative for the Falkland ward, West Berkshire district and Newbury town councillor Adrian Edwards (Con).

About 20 of her neighbours turned up for the meeting at her home less than 24 hours later.

Opening the meeting, she said: “The council told me that I would have been consulted and even gave me details of how I would have been consulted, but when I phoned councillor Edwards, he confirmed that we had not, in fact been consulted.

“But apart from that, there are also the issues that will come with having a basketball court here. We have already dealt with problems of anti-social behaviour in the area, and if this goes ahead, that will just return. We are dead against it.”

Mr Edwards told the group: “The original plan was to build a play area here as part of the Government's Playbuilder Scheme, and you should have been consulted as part of that.

“But when the money for that scheme was no longer available, we found the money elsewhere and I assumed you had been consulted. It was only when Mrs Dyson called me that I again asked the council and they told me that you had, in fact, not been consulted.

“You have told me that you don't want it and I will go back to the council and ask them to return the money. I will ask them if they can use this money somewhere else.”

Mr Edwards said the basketball court project was being managed by Newbury Town Council, but part of the funding would have come from West Berkshire Council.

The project was at the costing stage and work would have started soon after the building fees were approved by the town council.

Mr Edwards added that no planning permission would have been needed for the project.

Since his meeting with the Wash Common residents, Mr Edwards has confirmed that the project has been cancelled and said that he would request that the money be spent on other facilities in the area.



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