Since my last post about Ransomes Sports Club here, I have received a reply from Bryony Rudkin.
The Dame says
Dear Mr Algar,
Thank you for your email.
As the report in the Ipswich Star correctly stated we want to ensure that a variety of sports not just football is available on site. The drop in standards of the facilities at Ransomes in recent years is evidenced as you know with the loss of County Cricket which is no longer being played there and the once thriving bowls club no longer being in existence.
With regard to your enquiry about any plans Ipswich Borough Council may have in place to bring the bowls green and the cricket square to ‘the required standard’? I can assure you that further than this, the council recognises the need to improve all facilities at Ransomes and not just those for outdoor sports.
To achieve these improvements and in order to attract the necessary funding to finance the them, the process must start with a sound management and governance structure being put in place.
Since 2004 Ransomes has been run on an ad hoc basis and despite repeated calls for a sound and acceptable business plan to be presented to the council these fundamental administrative requirements have not been forthcoming. Therefore the council decided to serve notice to Ransomes Sport and Social Club.
I also stated in the article, we believe that under the wing of the Council there is a better opportunity in the current economic climate to procure external funding to enhance and expand the facility. The process for this will include dialogue with Sport England and various National Governing bodies of sport to help determine a vision to take the facility forward for the benefit of the local community as a whole.
Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your interest and to reiterate that we are going to keep this Council-owned facility open and we are going to save it for sport.
Yours
Bryony
The first obvious problem is the fact that County Cricket is already played at Ipswich School and just down the road in Copdock so that as Suffolk play in other parts of the county, four county standard cricket squares in such a small area would be unviable.
The second problem is that if nobody comes forward wanting to play outdoor sports there it’s not going to happen.
I would now like to know what Ipswich Labour’s idea of a sound management and governance structure is.
I have reason to believe her last paragraph is only true for the short term.
The author of the dRoss Blog has been to the far east curtessy of his well to do employers. Since he’s got back he’s carried on the same nonsesne about Ransomes here. The fact is, they didn’t want housing on it in 1994 because private houses could make Rushmere Ward more likely to go Tory but now the Conservative lead government is alowing them to build council houses they want the site for council houses to make Rushmere go Labour. Alasdair knows this and supports it because by the time his seat is up again the housing would have been built and the whole saga forgotten about
A Riverside View 