Cllr Michael Ball at last year's Foyes Corner Festival on the Civil Service Ground
A 10 year campaign by local residents and Freemantle's Councillors has finally ended in success! The former Civil Service Sports Ground (behind Malmesbury Road) has been saved from residential development, safeguarding it for use by the local community and local schools, and ensuring that it stays green.
As your local Councillors, Michael Ball, Brian Parnell and I have been pushing the council to buy or compulsory purchase the land for many years and as of now it is in council ownership.
We have set aside funds to immediately improve the site; cleaning it up and replacing the old walls that back onto neighbouring houses.
In the longer term we are keen to put in sports pitches and facilities and possibly even a club house. We are setting aside further funds to support applications for grant funding and bids to the lottery. Having seen the incredible transformation at St James' Park we would like to aim for something similar.
We want this to be a community asset and we need the support of local people to make it work. Already we have excellent support from the Friends of the Field community group and local schools but we do need more people involved. The Friends of St James' Park has 400+ members and this was a key reason they succeeded in their £1M lottery bid.
