Subject Issues not addressed at the meeting
  Simon Coates
  13 July 2004
   

I heard about the public meeting regarding Bramhall squash centre only 2 weeks ago when I turned up to play squash after a while without playing through injury. Before injury I had been playing squash regularly (approx one a week) for about the last 7 years which is when I moved into the area.

I therefore had little chance to prepare for the meeting and had not heard the actual proposals in any detail until the meeting. Now that I am fully aware of the proposals, the following are points are ones which were not raised at last nights meeting.

Squash Court usage

In the seven years I have played squash at Bramhall, the squash courts have been through various states of disrepair including, holes in the wall making the ball bounce off at strange angles, loose floor boards, a leaking roof and closure for an extended period for re-wiring.

The worst of these, the "leaking roof" rendered one of the courts unusable everytime there was rainfall and several occasions I received a phone call from the recreation centre to cancel my game for that evening, this fault went on for several months without repair.

Regardless of these problems and the lack of urgency with which repairs were made to these courts, the usage has remained constant and the users of the recreation centre loyal to the squash facility. I doubt whether these factors were taken into consideration in your usage calculations but I would suggest that keeping the squash courts and general facilities in a good state of repair could easily drive usage up.

Of the alternative community squash facilities mentioned in the area . How many combine this with balconies and a bar area which is one of the main reasons why the usage has not reduced over time.

Any calculations regarding the income from squash need to include a good proportion of the bar income as this will significantly reduce if the squash facility is closed.

Upsetting the squash users may also affect other sports at the centre as some users, such as myself play more than one sport and therefore use the Recreation centre for these as well. If I have to go somewhere else for squash, I may also switch for the others.

It was obvious at the meeting that the depth of feeling is overwhelmingly against the proposal to close the squash facility. This was proven beyond doubt by:

  1. The number of people who returned forms - more than 4:1 against
  2. The number of objections raised - not enough time for all objections to be heard
  3. The actual number of people who turned out on relatively short notice.

How can a fair and balanced decision ever be reached when as was admitted at the meeting, the final decision is to be made by a board of governors whose priority is the school not the community and the only supposedly impartial representative (Stockport Sport) in the mix is already firmly behind your proposals.
 

Is this a fair deal for the community?

I, like many others, left last night meeting with the distinct impression that although many alternatives to your proposals were mentioned, your minds were made up before the meeting and this was just a very late and unsuccessful PR exercise.
I look forward to being proved wrong on this point.

Regards

Simon