CIC Forces Closure of Gunnersbury Park Bowls Club
The following was posted by Bela Cunha on the Chiswick forum:
Gunnersbury Park Bowling Club was founded in 1931. When the Community (now, there's a misnomer!) Interest Company took over the running of the Park, bowls club members were assured that CIC valued bowling, wished to see it continue and wanted to discuss ways of increasing the general public's use of the green. What were those assurances worth? Or Hounslow's Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategy, with its laudable aims of promoting both, but, in reality, nothing but hot air? Now the sports hall is running massively late and needs more money (were late-finishing penalties not included in the building contract?) and CIC have decided to kick out the bowls club to replace it with a secret sporting activity to produce revenue. CIC refuse to reveal what the secret activity is or explain why there is such a need for secrecy. The bowls club did not cost the councils a penny; members looked after everything, including the upkeep of the green. Yet we are the sacrificial lamb, in another example of CIC short-sighted short-termism. They claim our site is just right for the secret activity, but is it really believable that, had there been any goodwill or readiness to look for another alternative, there is nowhere else in the park that could accommodate it? When/if this venture fails to generate the required revenue and packs up and leaves the park, the bowling green cannot be restored. Bowling was the one activity in the park for the older members of the community; the bowling club was for many years the place where we stayed active, socialised with friends and held competitions with other local clubs. All that has been disregarded and summarily thrown out by the autocratic CIC - judge and jury, unaccountable to the community whose interests it's meant to safeguard, not subject to oversight and strangers to transparency.
Gordon Southwell ● 2167d12 Comments