CONSULTATION
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As reported on gasheads.com, last week saw two public exhibitions of the plans for the Memorial Stadium regeneration to which local residents and interested parties were invited. The club has also produced a Consultation Strategy for the project (available for download here) and recognises the importance of gaining buy-in from the community. This was underlined by Roger Cooper, who is co-ordinating the consultation exercise on behalf of Rovers: “Consultation is a vital part of the development process and we have set out what we intend to do in order to keep people informed in a strategy document that can be downloaded from the Football Club and Supporters Club websites and from gasheads.com.” The new plans, which look the most viable yet, were generally well received and despite previous opposition from the residents it seems that the tide may slowly be turning. Roger Cooper said that he noticed just such a shift at last week’s meetings: “One of the encouraging aspects of the discussions last night was a general recognition that the stadium is not sustainable in its current state. “The facilities it provides fall short of the requirements of both the Football League and the Rugby Union in relation to the amount of seating available. Also, the social facilities need to be brought up to current day standards and expectations.” The consultation strategy has also been appreciated: “The residents who attended the exhibitions last week recognised the conceptual nature of the plans as they stand at the moment and accepted that the eventual design will be heavily influenced by the consultation process,” Roger commented. “I think the residents also appreciated the opportunity to put across their concerns with the proposals and made several suggestions for addressing them. We have produced a feedback sheet for people to use and this is also available on the websites.” The feedback form is available for download here. It’s designed
for anyone within the community to fill in and send back so if you’ve
got something to add then this is your chance to say it, after all,
as Roger explains, the regeneration of the stadium will have benefits
for more than just the football club: “We believe this regeneration
scheme with its incorporation of community facilities to build on
our existing community activities is a big step forward, not just
for the Football and Rugby Clubs but also for the city of Bristol
as a whole and is an opportunity for the city to make up a bit of
lost ground on some of the other cities around the country.
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