Rec’s overhaul will see the site turned into a sporting mecca
GREEN LIGHT FOR MULTI-USE GAMES AREA, CHANGING ROOMS AND OUTDOOR GYM
PLANS to redevelop a Derbyshire park with changing rooms and an allweather sports court have been approved.
At a South Derbyshire District Council meeting on Tuesday, April 30, councillors unanimously approved the authority’s own plans to redevelop Oversetts Road recreation ground, in Newhall.
The plans would see two new changing rooms, a multi-use games area, new footpaths, a football pitch and parking spaces, along with lockable gates developed on the current sloping and waterlogged site.
A shipping container, which had been used as changing rooms and toilets, has been removed in preparation for the scheme which has formed part of the overall former Cadley Park colliery master plan for years.
However, one heavily graffitied shipping container continues to remain on the site along with piping and rubble from its fellow removed container. Cllr Sarah Harrison said she welcomed the additions to the recreation ground and said they would help “bring the community together”.
Cllr Kalila Storey said she fully supported the scheme and that it was “great to see more facilities for our local communities”. Designs for the planned changing rooms show metal shipping container-style units, with each containing two toilets and showers, with one to also contain equipment storage and the other to contain a changing room for officials with a separate toilet and shower.
The outdoor gym area would include 11 pieces of equipment, similar to those available in Eureka Park in Swadlincote, all of which make use of the users’ own body weight as opposed to any additional weight. Equipment would include a leg press, pull-up bars, cross trainers, a bike, parallel bars and a chest press.
The multi-use games area would be an all-weather sports pitch with markings for tennis, football and basketball, with three-metre fencing around it, football goals and basketball hoops. There would be gaps in either side of the football goals for entrance and exit, aimed at “encouraging non-threatening use by all”.
Oversetts Rec is bordered by houses to the north, the Avant Homes construction compound to the east, the Cadley Park housing estate which will total 400 houses to the south, Fairmeadows Primary School to the northwest, and fields to the west which are earmarked for a further 150 homes.
The sports site is part of the overall master plan for the redevelopment of the Cadley Park colliery, with hundreds of homes approved and constructed.