Sports Hall

This web page is designed to enable all members of the Portchester Community and our neighbours access to details about the plans to build the hall. It also enables any interested party to make comment to me directly so that if there are ideas of worth considering to improve the structure and environment for users or our neighbours we can consider them.
The Borough Council’s Planning Department received the plans on Tuesday 5th May and have now recieved all comments from the public. The plans and the comments can be viewed here

We are very excited about this project, which means so much to the school, its students and staff:

• We can offer the students a large indoor area (the size of 6 badminton courts) to play a wealth of activities,
  badminton, football, basketball, volleyball, netball, cricket - the world’s our oyster!
  
• There will be a large Climbing Wall built at one end for curricular and extracurricular activities.
  
• It will improve our teaching time for all sporting activities.
  
• Our local community will be invited to use the facilities after hours and during holidays.
  
• Our School will become a sporting hub for all Bournemouth School sports.
  
• We will become a Centre of Excellence for Badminton.
  
• We will have a large space to hold whole school events e.g. assemblies.
  

We are therefore keen to listen to our neighbours and are happy to amend plans to their liking as long as they do not compromise the fundamentals of what we are trying to achieve. On Wednesday 6th May we invited local residents to a meeting to look at the plans and make comments. The consensus of residents at the meeting was to make the following suggestions:

• That a green colour rather than blue would be their preference, with landscaping such as trees and shrubs to
  ensure it blends into the landscape.
  
• Parking to position cars close to the facility in the evening so they are hidden by it.
  
• That the facility will have adequate security and that lettings would be supervised.
  
• That ‘No Dogs’ notices are displayed.
  

To view the initial plan and the latest revision please click here and here

To view these files you will need Adobe Reader which you can download here

We have now spoken to Sports Labs (http://www.sportslabs.co.uk/html/home.html) our consultants who have designed the building and want to make the following comments:

Colour is not specified in our submission to planning; the facility could be any colour and green or blue are suggested by Sports Labs. Below you can see the designs for the hall in both colours. Trees would be planted outside the fence line of the tennis courts. The trees would not grow if planted up against the building foundation and the construction is designed to take water away from the building. It is the school’s opinion that a green sports hall may give a ‘Nissan Hut’ feel to the school and that trees planted around it would not be noticed. Blue is preferred as it is the school colour and trees would look smarter with that background.

Green however is a colour the school would accept but we would like further opinions on colour from everyone now they can compare the plans, so please email your thoughts in.

• It is perfectly possible to ensure that parking for the Sports Hall is where our neighbours want it.
  
• The facility will be fenced, have a 3m steel base and be alarmed; security will be made to a high standard.
  
• All lettings will be supervised.
  
• We will endeavour to get the ‘No Dogs’ signs up ASAP.
  

If you want to make any comment please email jgreetham@portchester.bournemouth.sch.uk