Community centre car park extension given go-ahead

Rugeley Community Centre hosts a range of groups and events – and it has gone from strength to strength in recent years, a local councillor has said.

Rugeley Community Church took on the Burnthill Lane venue from Staffordshire County Council.

And now the green light has been given by Cannock Chase Council for the car park to be extended to provide 24 more parking spaces and two electric vehicle charging points

A community garden is also proposed in the grounds of the centre, planning committee members heard on Wednesday.

Grass reinforcement mesh materials will be used for the parking area.

The council received one objection to the proposals. The objector said: “The intended changes do not consider the local community sufficiently and are not currently representative of the this community.

“At present, the car park and surrounding niches of the building provide the criminal community with a place where their activities can be performed out of the public gaze. During the hours of darkness, this becomes particularly menacing to the community who wish to use this walking route to access the town centre on foot.

As such, the planned changes will only encourage increased criminal activity in the proposed locations. However, it is recognised that a proportion of potential users/ visitors are law abiding and wish to use the facilities as intended.

“If the access to the facility car park from Burnthill Lane were to be gated and secured to prevent vehicular access during the periods where the facility is not in use this would help to retain some form of respite to ourselves as neighbours. It would also be preferred that any lighting that is not illuminating a public right of way for pedestrians is turned off at 10pm every evening.”

Four letters of support were submitted by local councillors however. Councillor Mike Sutherland said: “Rugeley Community Church and the Youth and Community Centre are an essential asset to our local community and they have worked tirelessly to support the residents of Rugeley.

“Since the church took over the community centre from Staffordshire County Council, it has gone from strength to strength. The centre is now a very popular central hub within our local community, regularly hosting an array of different community groups and hirers.

“Due to such success, the existing car park often reaches capacity. The application aims to address this issue by extending and changing the layout of the car park.

“Although the proposed area is deemed to be Green Belt, I do not feel there would be any negative impact by this change of use. I very much doubt that our local community would be against this release to enable the extension.”