Pollok Park site for "Go Ape" centre.... just say NO!!

[fourbytwo]

I wander if Councillor Deans would have remained so negative if the proposals contained a rope walkway across the Pollokshaws Burgh Hall.......his 'hidey-hole' for many years, before coming-out when elected to represent the very areas he now so easily casts aside.....?

[hound dog]

Public Meeting in Pollokshields Burgh Hall (in Maxwell Park) this Wednessay 2 April - nore info on website

http://www.savepollokpark.com

[fourbytwo]

I wonder if anyone noticed my piece of sarcasim that I added to the Noticeboard in the new Evening Times Pollok Web site......? a good avenue for other pieces of dry wit perhaps...?

[crusty_bint]

OBJECTOR'S KIT - Latest

You can now e-mail your comments by 13th April

If, like me, you operate on the 'last minute' principle please note you can e-mail your comments letter up to 13th April, thereby ensuring it's on the planning officer's desk by the 14th deadline.
Further comments by email should be sent to [email protected]. If you plan to email your correspondence the Council asks that you put "APPLICATION TO BE REFERRED TO SCOTTISH MINISTERS 07/03308/DC" in the subject box as it will identify your representation quickly


Lobby!
Once again – please ensure you lobby as well. You can also encourage friends who did not originally object to write their elected representatives using the three sources we quoted before:

http://www.writetothem.com
Current Members page of the Scottish Parliament website
Glasgow Councillors here on the Council website

Thanks to Gerry Fletcher for an additional list of addresses for Scottish Ministers:

[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]

using the subject "GLASGOW CITY COUNCIL PLANNING APPLICATION TO BE REFERRED TO SCOTTISH MINISTERS 07/03308/DC"

...AND FINALLY
Don't forget our petitions are still open – on paper and online. As of this morning our online count stood at 928 signatures – wouldn't it be great to pass the 1,000 mark online and boost the numbers?

Have you signed our online petition yet?:
http://www.petitiononline.com/220848/petition.html

[email protected]

[Peekay]

I went for a wee waddle through Pollok Park today and it was heaving with families and I thought. Will these parents take their kids to the P.P. only to get constanly harassed with the weans wanting a shot on the swings, or are they just going to go to the Rookie instead? I reckon the latter! So as I said, Pollok Park, and the Burrells' loss, will be the Rookies' gain.

No doubt afterwards the figures will be massaged to show visitor numbers have stayed the same, or even went up, but just who these visitors are won't be pointed out. Locals with their kids and dogs will disappear and the middle classes from the 'burbs and Ayrshire villages will appear. This'll leave in the longer term fit(Go-Ape), educated(Burrell) middle classes to the detriment of those Glaswegians that can't afford it and/or don't want to put up with the kids whinging.

So on behalf of Ayrshire and Renfrewshire councils I'd like to thank the G.C.C. for ignoring your own people and helping ours out. Bravo Sirs!!!

PK

[scoobydoo]

I went for a wee waddle through Pollok Park today and it was heaving with families and I thought. Will these parents take their kids to the P.P. only to get constanly harassed with the weans wanting a shot on the swings, or are they just going to go to the Rookie instead? I reckon the latter! So as I said, Pollok Park, and the Burrells' loss, will be the Rookies' gain.

I just don't understand this logic. Is Pollok Park so small that it will be unavoidable to go past the Go Ape centre - I think not. If any parent wants to prevent their child from moaning then avoid the Go Ape area. Like everything in life its about choices.

Why can parks not provide a range of facilities.

SD

[hound dog]

I went for a wee waddle through Pollok Park today and it was heaving with families and I thought. Will these parents take their kids to the P.P. only to get constanly harassed with the weans wanting a shot on the swings, or are they just going to go to the Rookie instead? I reckon the latter! So as I said, Pollok Park, and the Burrells' loss, will be the Rookies' gain.

I just don't understand this logic. Is Pollok Park so small that it will be unavoidable to go past the Go Ape centre - I think not. If any parent wants to prevent their child from moaning then avoid the Go Ape area. Like everything in life its about choices.

So, what you're saying is that parents who don't want their children "moaning" about Go Ape should just avoid walking in North Wood, which (apart from being a totally unique location in the city) is one of the few remaining areas left in Pollok Park where families and others can wander freely, enjoy nature and peace and tranquillity? Much of Pollok Park now has restricted public access e.g. police dog training, allotments, club playing fields etc and that's not to mention walkers having to watch out for the amount of traffic that passes through on the tarmac roads that have been built.

Your failure to understand the logic of Peekay's comments presumably means that either you have never visisted North Wood or that you fail to appreciate why it is such a precious asset to the people of Glasgow.

[Peekay]

I went for a wee waddle through Pollok Park today and it was heaving with families and I thought. Will these parents take their kids to the P.P. only to get constanly harassed with the weans wanting a shot on the swings, or are they just going to go to the Rookie instead? I reckon the latter! So as I said, Pollok Park, and the Burrells' loss, will be the Rookies' gain.

I just don't understand this logic. Is Pollok Park so small that it will be unavoidable to go past the Go Ape centre - I think not. If any parent wants to prevent their child from moaning then avoid the Go Ape area. Like everything in life its about choices.

Why can parks not provide a range of facilities.

SD

With the limited amount of car parks, the main one being at the Burrell next to the Go-Ape site, then on a busy(ish) day it will be unavoidable to go near it. And yes you're right, life is about choices, and I'd reckon that they(the parents) will 'choose' to go the Rookie, have a shot on the boats with a Slush Puppie each afterwards for under a fiver. Which, sadly, will be to the childs detriment because many of these parents would probably have sneaked in an educational visit to the Burrell as well.

I've also wonder if the council has thought(Does it ever?) about the 'profit' they are going to get from this place and how much of that is going to be eaten up by security/policing during the building of Go-Ape. At the very least I hope they've had the foresight to make sure these costs are past onto Go-Ape.

PK

[scoobydoo]

So, what you're saying is that parents who don't want their children "moaning" about Go Ape should just avoid walking in North Wood

No, thats not what I am saying. It looks to me that a substantial part of the North Wood would be unaffected. The plans on the save Pollok Park website say 30% will be affected which is presumeably based on the planning boundary, but the same site indicates the actual extent of structures which is considerably less that 30%. Therefore a substantial part of the North Wood would still be available for use with insignificant impacts from the Go Ape facility.

SD

[hound dog]

So, what you're saying is that parents who don't want their children "moaning" about Go Ape should just avoid walking in North Wood

No, thats not what I am saying. It looks to me that a substantial part of the North Wood would be unaffected. The plans on the save Pollok Park website say 30% will be affected which is presumeably based on the planning boundary, but the same site indicates the actual extent of structures which is considerably less that 30%. Therefore a substantial part of the North Wood would still be available for use with insignificant impacts from the Go Ape facility.

The area that is being leased to Go Ape is (next to the Burrell) is that section of North Wood that is most frequently used by walkers and families at this point in time. It also incorporates the Glade, ("a Conservation Area and designed landscape of national importance" according to Historic Scotland). Go Ape proposes to put one of their zip slides right across it! There is a network of footpaths and in a few weeks time the rhododendron bushes will be in full bloom. A substantial section of North Wood on the other side of the main path incorporates the mountain bike trails, so it is not appropriate to suggest that the "displaced walkers" can descend en masse on that section of the wood. Even if it were appropriate, the noise from Go Ape customers would still intrude. The company's claim that the noise "dissipates within a few metres" is total garbage.

Apart from this issue, there are a great many perfectly valid reasons as to why so many people are up in arms about these proposals. I'm not going to go in to it all here, but will merely say that the fundamental reason is that North Wood is not simply "a park". It is an ancient and long-established woodland and as such is afforded all kinds of legal protection, which the clowns on the Council have seen fit to ignore and/or dismiss

[Sharon]

Film about Pollok Free State - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/gla ... 352763.stm

http://www.giventothepeople.org/

[crusty_bint]

Herald

City’s oldest surviving road found by archaeology dig in Pollok Park

The ancient pathways pounded by St Mungo as he built his church at the tiny fishing settlement called Glas Gu are positively futuristic by comparison.

After lying concealed by vegetation and woodland for what may be almost 3000 years, archaeologists have unearthed what they believe to be Glasgow's oldest surviving thoroughfare.

The heavily paved road, between 50 and 100 metres in length and leading into a stone settlement protected by large earth banks and ditches, has been discovered in a densely wooded section of the city's Pollok Park by a team made up of Glasgow University academics and members of the Glasgow Archaeological Society.

If their guesses are correct, the road dates from between 500BC and 700BC and could well be the avenue and entrance into the home of an influential Iron Age southsider.

Aftermath of the dig

[samscafeamericain]

Is that 3,000 year old swally bottles

[viceroy]

Just in case there's any confusion, the pictures I took were of the first archaeological dig last year in the woods just beyond the Pond, not far from the northern boundary of Pollok Park. They don't relate to the dig going on at the moment.

The site of the current dig is just a short distance from the Burrell. I was taking a stroll through the Park early last week when I spotted a group of archaeologists working at the site. This was the first I knew of the dig. I was tempted to stop and ask some questions but thought it might be presumptuous of me to disturb them in their work. Now I regret not having done so. There was a report about it on Radio Scotland as well the other day.

Yet another example of the enormously rich history of Pollok Park and yet another reason to reject the Go-Ape development!

[onyirtodd]

"A pensioner collapsed and died on an aerial assault course at a forest adventure park as his two grandchildren looked on.
The 76-year-old, who has not been named, lost consciousness on the platform of the high-wire adventure course at the Go Ape centre in Aberfoyle, Stirlingshire, shortly after midday yesterday."

http://news.scotsman.com/latestnews/Chi ... 4244034.jp