posted 21st May, 2010
THE club’s committee has written to Tollbar Edge to invite them to talk about their abrupt decision to evict the club from Lindsey School this summer.
As previously reported, the club received the thoughtfully-worded, two-paragraph letter this week from a Mr M Brown, who tells us that Tollbar has already decided that the club’s days are numbered at Lindsey School, and that the wall must come down.
Mr Brown doesn’t go into detail about the company’s plans for the sports hall, and given that they haven’t discussed or consulted with anybody first, we are hoping to find out more about the situation soon.
Of course, such a situation wouldn’t be complete without a healthy portion of irony, and that can be seen in the first paragraph of Tollbar’s vision statement, which is available for public consumption on its website.
A copy of the club’s letter to Mr Brown can be seen below. If you would like to write to him to let him know your thoughts (keep them clean!) on Tollbar’s plans, you can send your letters to him at:
Mr M J Brown
Tollbar Edge (Cleethorpes Academy)
Station Road
New Waltham
Grimsby
DN36 4RZ
Here’s a copy of the club’s letter to Mr Brown:
Dear Mr Brown,
I write in response to your correspondence as of May 17, in which you state that Tollbar Edge has taken the decision to evict Lindsey Climbing Club from the gym of The Lindsey School as of September this year.
The club is a voluntary sports group which has used the school’s sports hall for more than 25 years, and given that we are the only climbing wall in the borough of North East Lincolnshire (the nearest commercial climbing wall to Cleethorpes is in Hull), you will not be surprised to learn that the gym is a valuable facility for the club and without access to it the club could not operate.
While we expect that Tollbar Edge will have some changes planned for the premises on turning it into an academy, we hope you will consider that the decision to close down a valuable facility such as this will be to the detriment to the local community and indeed your own pupils. Many of the club’s members are young people who come every week to use the facilities only through their own desire and motivation to get involved in sport – something for which, I would have thought, your organisation would be keen to show its support.
As Tollbar Edge states in the first paragraph of its vision statement: “The new Academy, in partnership with Tollbar College, would work with both statutory and voluntary local partners, continue to promote extended learning facilities for adults as well as students and would seek to develop further a range of extracurricular activities including sport and performing arts.”
It is therefore confusing that Tollbar Edge would seek to close Lindsey’s climbing wall – effectively shutting down the sport of climbing in North East Lincolnshire – without discussion or consultation with the club, its members, and the wider public.
If Tollbar Edge is indeed keen to provide opportunities which are for the “best interest of the pupils”, as you state in your correspondence, it would be more appropriate, in my view, for you to discuss your ideas to ascertain the most beneficial options available to all parties before taking any decisions which would be certain to have a major, negative impact on the sporting and cultural scene of the local area.
Lindsey Climbing Club is keen to continue in its current vein, providing an otherwise unavailable sport to the local community, but to do so it needs the support of public-facing organisations such as Tollbar Edge.
I hope, therefore, that you find yourself willing and able to take the time to discuss this matter with us in person to explore the options and opportunities open to us, in which case we would be happy to visit you at your convenience.
We await Tollbar’s response.