Time to be realistic about ice rinks.
Everyone on earth likes ice rinks, as long as they are NOT in their back yard.
Last time replacing the ice rink was on the council agenda, with the ice rink in the sky over Richmond station, who supported the idea? No one.
The time before, with the ice rink next to Pools on the Park, who supported the idea? No one who lived nearby and who could rouse the then MP for the area.
When the ice rink was in what became my ward, down a side street, was it popular with local residents? No.
Do ice rinks make loads of money so that people want to run them? No.
The Richmond (Twickenham really) ice rink was closed by its owners as it was not making them any money. Even if it had been they would probably still have wanted to close it as more money was available from selling the site.
The Streatham ice rink (near where I work) is now threatened in the same way.
The council could only have kept the ice rink running by buying the site themselves, which was clearly impossible.
I have looked at the original planning decision, and I would, had I been a ward councillor, have opposed the scheme because it created an isolated community rather than for any other reason. I would have regarded the opportunity of building an ice rink somewhere else more suitable as an advantage. What was not foreseen by the councillors involved in that decision was that the rebuilding of the ice rink would have provoked opposition, including the opposition of the MP, which assisted the then government in refusing the access required.
It is lovely to be able to claim reverse 20-20 vision, but I am not sure I would have foreseen that. As you know, the planning agreement was then varied (as it had become impossible to perform) to provide for £300,000 to go to Leisure Services uses instead of requiring the construction of an ice rink.
This money supported many sports related aims all over the borough and was not finally used up until about three years ago.
Had the application been refused, it would have gone to appeal, and maybe after a few years something different would have emerged, but would there have been an ice rink there? Not very likely?
You say all this was illegal, but you've taken the council to court over it (costing us council tax payers more money) and have you won? No.
Over the years people have asserted that we owned, and then sold the ice rink site. But that isn't true. On this very site you have said that the Liberal Democrats "got rid" of the ice rink. That isn't true either. Nemo dat quod non habet.
An ice rink will only return to the borough when a private developer supports the idea and finds a suitable site. What about the gas works site? It might have been a wonderful ice rink site, but the argument was not about that; it was whether it would be suitable as another horrid supermarket. The council opposed that use and lost. Had there been an application for an ice rink, it would have been judged on its own merits. I doubt it would have been turned down. It is NEVER a planning argument against Use 1 that Use 2 is possible, or better, or lovely.
You must know that there are very few sites where only one use is possible. The gas works might have been developed as housing, or as a business park, or loads of other things, and from the owner's point of view any of these things would have brought in more money than an ice rink.
Could you have purchased the site for its developable value? Could the council? Was there a consortium lined up to build an ice rink and pay the appropriate price for the site? I don't think so.
From the above you will see that an ice rink will only be back on the agenda if a planning application is made in respect of it upon a site where enabling development makes it financially viable.
So will the Liberal Democrats do lose the next borough elections because of the grant of planning consent to the private owners of the former ice rink site for its development 15 years before? I am afraid I cannot tell the future. People will have to decide that for themselves. |
