This week I attended my second outer south area committee meeting. The area committee consists of all of the councillors for the four outer south wards of Rothwell, Ardsley and Robin Hood, Morley South and Morley North. This includes my Labour councillor colleagues from Ardsley and Robin Hood – Lisa Mulherin, Karen Renshaw and Jack Dunn and from Morley South Neil Dawson. There are five Labour councillors on the area committee, five Morley Borough Independents – and two Lib Dems. The area committee meetings move around the area – the last one was in Rothwell and this one was in Thorpe.
At the start of every area committee meeting there is an ‘open forum’ which is a good opportunity for members of the public to make representations or ask questions on matters within the terms of reference of the area committee. There were no members of the public at this particular meeting and so no matters were raised.
Councillors heard presentations, received reports and asked questions on our various subjects including Parks, it was interesting to discover that Springhead Park has the most visits by far than any of the parks in the outer south area with 1,732,000 annual visits according to the 2009 residents survey. Of the nine parks listed, the second most visited was Scatcherd Park with 633,000 followed by Drighlington Moor Park at 619,000. It’s great to see just how popular our Springhead Park in Rothwell is. The top reasons residents gave for visiting Springhead Park in Rothwell was excercise, relaxation and play.
Committee members approved funding for improvements to both Springhead Park, for resurfacing work at park entrances and to Woodlesford Park, towards the project which is being spearheaded by the Oulton and Woodlesford Action group which I’m very happy to support to make various improvements to the park. The group are doing some fantastic work – they’ve only been going for a year and have already had their first fun day and have masterminded a plan to improve the park for people in Woodlesford and Oulton to enjoy! I look forward to working with them to see the plans implemented.
