At the beginning of February I wrote… this is getting all too familiar isn’t it? Deja-vu – eat your heart out. So, in the third instalment of tree/sport centre news, it turns out that the building of the £40 million sports village on University Park Campus will go ahead after some slight adjustments to the plans.
Doesn’t this all feel like a strange version of the hokey cokey? Plans are in, out, in out, they shake it… you get the idea!
Previously it looked as if the proposed development of a huge, innovative (see the artist impression in my first article) sports complex had hit the rocks due to three very old oak trees. In what some might call a hypocritical move (due to the felling of many trees for the tram improvements that have been going on since the dawn of time), the council refused to allow the university to go ahead with the project; despite the university already starting the building of the temporary facilities which were set to provide for students whilst the village itself was being developed.
However, in what can otherwise be called a ‘compromise’, the plans have now moved 9 metres to the south-east, behind the trees, so that they do not have to be cut down in order to support the needs of countless generations of sporting stars.
The council had said that they were always willing and enthusiastic to support the project, provided there were slight adjustments and rumours are abound that the decision making process this time took all of five minutes. Hooooooorah! It’s always nice when things work out, isn’t it? Remember, we called it here first – I quote: ‘[G]iven the size and potential of the project it is perhaps a question of sooner rather than later as to when a compromise will be met’.
References:
http://www.hercampus.com/school/nottingham/bright-future-notts-sporting-stars
http://www.hercampus.com/school/nottingham/trees-crowd
https://cbjnewsreports.wordpress.com/2015/02/20/nottingham-university-sports-centre-will-go-ahead/
http://www.wikihow.com/Draw-a-Simple-Tree
http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/sport/facilities/david-ross-sports-village.aspx
Edited by Harriet Dunlea