The chair of Barkway Parish Council has said the plans to move play equipment on the recreation ground to make way for a car park will provide a solution to parking problems around the area and help resolve safety issues.
The parish council propose to use part of the land along the western edge to build a car park, as they say currently there isn’t enough space for vehicles.
This causes an overspill onto Cambridge Road, reducing it to a single track and prompting safety concerns for pedestrians, cyclists and drivers.
Parish council chairman Sonia Falaschi-Ray told the Crow: “Parking near the village recreation ground has become a problem, especially as Royston Town FC have use of the rec as part of a five-year agreement.
“The car park will lie along the western edge of the rec, fenced and with locked bollards. It won’t be used all the time, only during football and other people-intensive activities, when it will be supervised.
“Its surface will be plastic matting so grass can grow. The cars closest to the houses will be angled nose-first so there won’t be a problem with exhaust fumes.”
As a result of the car park being built, Mrs Falaschi-Ray said some play equipment on the ground will be moved a little futher east and the play area will be fenced off for safety reasons.
“We aren’t getting rid of the play area for the car park,” she said.
“We will be disposing of one set of swings, but that’s because they have come to end of their life.
“These plans are primarily for safety and it will be better – but people have got terribly upset.”
Mrs Falaschi-Ray said the parish council has informed residents about the plans, but has heard back from very few.
“In April a letter was hand delivered to residents detailing a consultation meeting on May 3, giving two weeks’ notice,” she said.
“Also on that date, an email detailing this meeting was sent out to all residents who are on our village email database – 80 per cent of households. It was also put on the website and notices were subsequently placed on the parish noticeboards.
“No formal feedback was received by the parish council apart from five local residents who went to the May 3 meeting.”
To submit your views on the plans email parishclerk@barkway-village.co.uk.
The consultation period for feedback on the plans ends on May 21 and the following day, there will be an emergency parish council meeting at Barkway Reading Room in High Street at 7.30pm.
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