Mallory Park under threat

[Oldfart]

Here we go again, shades of the Western Springs saga.
New residents to the area near Mallory Park in Leicestershire have complained about the noise, to the extent that public days have been suspended.
The local council requires 100 000 signatures to keep the track as is, so far 30 000. Apparently the objectors total around 12.
Many local businesses have said if the track goes so will they.

[Steve Holmes]

Bloody hell! Just ridiculous. Peoples stupidity never ceases to amaze me. Its matched only by their greed and selfishness. If you buy or build a house next to a race track, its going to be noisy! Just as it will be if you choose to live next to an airport. The fact people do this, then complain, pisses me off. The fact councils actually take their complaints seriously is beyond a joke.

[ERC]

Bearing in mind Kirkby Mallory is a tiny village, the 100,000 signatures required to keep the Park, can presumably come from anywhere? That being the case, where do we sign? I can certainly use a valid UK address if required as I am sure many of the readers on here could too.

Love Mallory. It has to stay.

[GD66]

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/46739

[Oldfart]

Bearing in mind Kirkby Mallory is a tiny village, the 100,000 signatures required to keep the Park, can presumably come from anywhere? That being the case, where do we sign? I can certainly use a valid UK address if required as I am sure many of the readers on here could too.

Love Mallory. It has to stay.

According to the e petition Terms and conditions you have to have UK address

[ERC]

Good job I still have my UK driving licence with a UK address then!

[928]

i have just read on another forum, that the problem is the scrambling track that has been put into use recently not the cars or race track proper

[Oldfart]

928, there seem to be differing thoughts.
All public days have been suspended, as have test days for race teams. The owner has said that if it does not resolve he will sell the whole complex. This would indicate that it's NOT the "scrambles" track that is the issue. Complacency can not be permitted!
As of a few minutes ago 31000 odd signatures.

[928]

oldfart,
I just checked back at the forum i spoke of, and there was open testing there yesterday, photos shown, was reported that the manager was as mutch in the dark as the rest of us (nostalgia)

[AMCO72]

Yes, and this sort of thing doesn't just happen to motoracing circuits.........a true story.........

Mummy, Daddy and Samantha were eager to move away from town to get away from the noise and pollution, and find a nice quiet block in the country.......Mummy wanted a nice big garden, Daddy wanted a nice BIG lawn, and Samantha wanted a nice expensive pony......cos all her friends have ponies!!!!!

Daddy finds a nice 10 acre block where they build their dream home with a big garden, a big lawn, and a pony paddock, and that still left 8 acres to grow.......what?......grass, weeds, thistles etc etc. Unfortunately daddy did not drive round the roads in a mile radius of their dream property, checking on what else was happening there.

Unfortunately, just down the road there was a nice smelly piggery, which when the wind was in the right direction, wafted all its piggy smells straight at Daddys block. So Daddy decided to complain to the local council, pointing out that the smell was destroying his life-style, plus all the other country noises that were disturbing the family at all hours of the day and night......haymaking, fertilizer spreading, trucks rumbling past, were giving his Wife a head-ache!!! In addition, Daddys' BIG lawn was proving to be a bit of a worry; he was spending most of his weekends on the ride-on and not getting out fishing like he used to. He decided not to rock the boat, as it were ,and put up with the piggy smells, and the big lawn, because Mummy liked her big garden, although she missed popping down to the local café for a flat white with her girl-friends. Daddy put up with this situation for a year or two but was getting increasingly frustrated.

Amazingly, the local council sided with Daddy, and decided there was a case to answer, and delivered an ultimatum to the piggery owner that he had to do something about the smells, and gave him a year to comply. This is despite the fact that the piggery had been there for 25 years. The owner decided [a] that he was too old to fight this order, and [b] it was going to financially ruin him, so he shut shop and moved on.

An unlikely saviour for Daddy came to the rescue.......Samantha, was now 15 years old and had discovered BOYS......she was a late starter!!!! The horse was forgotten about, Mummy had a sore back with all the gardening, and Daddy had a good excuse to sell up.
Which he did, leaving the district in taters after ruining the lives of the pig farmer. Here endeth the story!

As with the motoracing circuits, do people not check on the activities in the area before they buy, and it seems astounding to me that local bodies can be so influenced by one or two objectors, when clearly the objectors haven't done their home work. I suspect in a lot of cases it is ONE person who proceeds to whip all the neighbours into a frenzy and gets a petition going. Shoot the bastards I say!!!!!!!

Exactly the same thing happened to the big mushroom farm in Morrinsville, though I think in their case they either fought the order or managed to 'de smell' the compost that the mushrooms grew in.

[Oldfart]

oldfart,
I just checked back at the forum i spoke of, and there was open testing there yesterday, photos shown, was reported that the manager was as mutch in the dark as the rest of us (nostalgia)

I am going on stuff which came from the Hinckley Council, which my son who lives there has accessed. I don't know who is correct obviously!
Sorry, that sounds arrogant, was not meant to be. There is a lot on the various UK sites, Motorsport, local council own sites etc. If the manager knows nothing he has not been reading the local press! I suspect reading between the lines that circuit management has been acting outside their agreements.

[ERC]

I have signed. I wonder how much exposure has been in the UK press/messsage boards/forums etc? 31,000 is not a lot considering the 50,000 a day at Goodwood's festival, or well over 120,000 at Silverstone for the GP. However, the petition does run until 2014.

http://www.progcovers.com/motor/mallory570422.jpg

The oldest Mallory programme in my collection. If anyone has a programme for the August 4th 1956 meet, I'd love to buy or borrow as this may have been my first visit to Mallory.
http://www.theroaringseason.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=12926&d=1352084099

[ERC]

To this day, one of the best race meetings I have ever been to, with John Surtees winning in the F1 Lola and racing the GTO Ferrari. Graham Hill in an E Type Jag and my musical hero, Chris Barber making it to the GT final in his Lotus Elite, beating drivers such as John Wagstaffe in the Team Elite car.


http://www.progcovers.com/motor/mallory620611.jpg

[928]

I have just read that the staff at Mallory Park have been given 90 day redundancy notices. such a shame,the place holds great memories for me. screwed again by the do gooder nimby bunch

[Paul Wilkinson]

Western Springs is a great example of this. If it should get closed down, the locals will soon look back at the good-old-days when they only had to put up with a handful of nights with noise. It would be a perfect site for Len's high-level, high density housing. Think about the noise from hundreds of apartments with all the associated coming and goings, parties etc....

There have even been complaints about the noise the animals at the Zoo make! I'd much rather hear a Lion or Elephant than a WRX coming and going at 3:00am....

[crunch]

Idiots such as these people can moan about anything...but the seriously mentally-challenged people are the councils (in England and here) that actually listen to these selfish individuals. Geez;...this sort of thing pisses me off.

[ERC]

Minority rules eh? Twelve people complain and you need 100,000 signatures to stop them getting their way. Crazy.

We don't need to look any further than HD. NO complaints from the public, but two government departments (prisons and roads) delay the project by 2 years and cost millions not only to the developers, but also the tax payers. (ie Us.)

[928]

a short story for you.
I was at goodwood airfield testing a race car, this would have been about 84-86 and two old boys who lived in the housing estate that butts up to one side of the airfield came over and were watching us at work. We had seen them before and said Hi. when we stopped for lunch they came over to the cafe with us and told us of the Chichester council meeting that had just taken place a few days earlier to try and stop race cars testing on the circuit. Lord March who owns Goodwood estate,horse racing track, and the airfield was there as a ratepayer for all his land. the locals from the housing estate had tried to keep him out and then tried to stop him speaking in defence of the airfield and ALL its goings on. He was booed down by the locals who openly said they just wanted to look at green grass.. Lord March, who listened to the whole presentation then made a closing speech saying that if ANY restrictions were placed on his airfield He would build a hgh density housing estate on it as Chichester council had asked him to do a few years earlier. The results are obvious as all this took place before the revival meetings started and in fact before the hillclimb at Goodwood house started. These things can be beaten but a determined and well thought out presentation is needed.
Just a rambling from me 928

[ERC]

Gotta love Lord March! He has probably done as much for UK motorsport in recent years as anyone other than possibly Dr Jonathan Palmer.

[Milan Fistonic]

With reference to Western Springs, I wonder how many of the people complaining about Speedway at that venue were residents in the area when the Auckland City Council made this decision in 1928.

Approval of a scheme for developing a motor cycle racing track on the Western Springs playing area, was expressed by the Auckland City Council last evening. The scheme, submitted by Messrs. Roycroft and Kay, as promoters, had been before a sub-committee of the council, and the conditions under which the proposed club should be given a tenancy were adopted.

The periods named in the terms of agreement were from December 1, 1929, to March 31, 1930, and similarly in 1930-31, the club to have the ground on Saturday nights from7 to 11 p.m. and on holidays. A minimum rental of 25 pounds a night was fixed.

A report submitted by the promoters’ solicitors on their behalf showed that the track would be a quarter of a mile in length, with a width of 30 feet.

In the past eight years, motor cycle race meetings have been held on the Takapuna racecourse and last summer a meeting was held at Alexandra Park. The promoters submitted that the manner in which the meetings had been run justified a venture on a larger scale.

From the Auckland Star December 21, 1928.

[Oldfart]

Likewise the Mallory info is very keen to point out that it is not new people to the area who have raised concerns. However Mallory has been in operation for over 50 years, so I would hazard a guess they all came after the circuit began. To be fair though the circuit has stepped outside its' agreement on days of operation.
The Public meeting (Council, residents and the circuit supporters) was cancelled by council amidst fears of protesting "outsiders". The council have stated they do not want to see the circuit and all the support businesses closed, nor will they go to legal action unless unavoidable.

[Oldfart]

Well, I believe from info today that we must say "I told you so".
I have been told that it is with immediate effect that the circuit is no more. There are more reasons than the noise, but that was the "tip over". There had been a marked increase in complaints. The Council CEO on a TV interview stated that there had been approx 120 complaints, over 100 of them from 2 households.
It would appear that the owner of the land buckled, and the circuit operators could not make a financial success with the number of days they were allowed to operate.