Walking through the park this morning I noticed the new basketball court, that has recently appeared there where the football pitch was, doesn’t drain properly.It is only since I discovered that they had spent £1,000,000 of our money on the cliff repairs that obviously didn’t work out quite how they expected, that I look at what they have done with considerable more scepticism.
The whole thing with the basketball court is a bit strange, they didn’t move the football goalposts but instead they removed them completely, I may be naïve but I assumed that in England football was more popular than basketball.
I don’t just base this on the fact that there were a lot more youfs playing football there when it was football pitch, but also on the fact that basketball books don’t sell very well at all, certainly not as much as football books.
The picture above was taken this morning at about 8.50 the weather was quite dry and had been for some time.
Here are this morning’s pictures http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/blogpicts129/id5.htm
I live by that basketball court and its been there a fair while - since at least beginning of summer. I have witnessed council wasting money on that plot of land which passes for a park for a while. In the summer i counted no less than 3 sit on mowers and at least 15 council men take all morning and a fair bit of the afternoon to mow and tidy a bit - It should take 3 men no more than two hours ( i used to use a sit on mower and work for council) - I have seen the basketball court gets used for football, tennis, skateboarding - even cricket but rarely if ever have i seen it used for basketball
ReplyDeleteHi Micheal,
ReplyDeleteI think you should investigate a bit further on this one? If you go inside the court it doubles up as a basketball/football court. Under each basket there is a cage goal which allows you to play either on the court (not at the same time. You are probably thinking of footy in terms of mud up to your waist and big wet heavy leather footballs where the lace inprints on your head when you head it.
Afraid these days are long gone as my sons will testify, they have had 5 games cancelled on the bounce by the council for wet conditions. However they can use the court at Boundary Rd :-)
Either way the basket/foot ball court shouldn`t have a puddle in the middle of it. A bit of time and effort making something level would be expected as a minimum standard, especially for something less than a year old.
ReplyDeleteMichael,
ReplyDeleteThe council havent a clue! they want to build on land at Palm bay to provide finance for football changing rooms and no-one plays football there? before they wanted to sell one asset well used by one generation to pay for a swimming pool,presumably to appeal to another? popularist policies i think you call it !
I was rather impressed by the basketball court!
ReplyDeleteIf it stops the trees there ending up completely denuded of branches, as they were when they were used constantly as goalposts, you could perhaps give whoever from the Council got the money together a bit of credit.
They may often be a bit rubbish, but justified criticism is much easier to sustain when its balanced with (qualified!) praise when its due.
They can't label you a moaner that way!
Just a few general thoughts on this one, I think that the council maintain our parks and gardens very well and have to admit I haven’t noticed any slacking by the people who do it myself.
ReplyDeleteI really am not certain about the pros and cons of a court as opposed to a grass pitch, sorry I missed the goals I was in a rush doing the school walk.
My main concern here is that the work hasn’t been done to a high standard and who pays to put it right, or does it just stay wrong.
I am sure there were proper goalposts there before the court.