THURSDAY, March 4, 1999, was a sad day for Bury.

It was the day preparation began to cut away a great swathe of our previous greenbelt land.

The reason? To enable the relocation of Bolton Road Sports Club to the land behind Foulds Avenue.

This move, supported by Derek Boden and Bury's planning officers despite overwhelming objections from the local community, was perfectly timed. For over the previous few days we had witnessed frogs beginning their migration to the pond to spawn.

Obviously, the lives of a few amphibians and the anger of a community over their loss of free access to this previous resource is a small price to pay. The relocation will release the sports club's current site - left in trust to Bolton Road Methodist Church for the recreational use of the people of Bury - and will enable Wainhomes to further distress residents while building 81 new homes on the site.

I do hope that Bolton Road Methodist Church, who instigated this whole mess, are proud of themselves. The legacy of their greed will blight the lives of the people of this town forever.

SADDENED RESIDENT

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.