The Goole Town Deal Board met on Friday 27 January and discussed the business case for the redevelopment of the Victoria Pleasure Ground (VPG), which is the mechanism through which the Town Deal funding earmarked for the site will be released. The VPG is operated by Goole Town Council and the Goole Town Deal Board has worked in partnership with the town council to develop the proposals. 

Following Friday’s meeting, Andrew Percy, Member of Parliament for Brigg and Goole and a member of the Goole Town Deal Board, said: “The decision to invest millions of pounds upgrading the Victoria Pleasure Ground using some of the Town Deal funding allocated to Goole was something that the late Councillor Josie Head pushed hard for, as a member of the Board.

“The Goole Town Deal Board is disappointed at some of the unfair comments made about the project and the way the Board has dealt with it. From the start, the Board’s only motivation has been to rescue and regenerate an important town centre community asset from a spiral of gradual decline. We have to be brutally honest though and be frank with people that this is a facility that has been in decline for sometime and that continuing as it is now could well end up in us losing the facility altogether. This funding is not just to upgrade the VPG, it is very much to save it! 

“Our sole objective is to invest millions of pounds to renovate and upgrade the Victoria Pleasure Ground to ensure that more local people can have access to it, and in a way that makes it financially viable for the future. This means creating fantastic new changing facilities, a venue for social events with the capacity to seat 180 people and additional amenities that will allow more residents and visitors to enjoy and visit the site.

“The VPG has received little investment in recent years and is only surviving currently because Goole Town Council subsidises it heavily, using tens of thousands of pounds of Goole council tax payers’ money each year. In fact, the level of subsidy has risen from £25,000 to £32,000 during the current (2022/23) financial year, which is clearly unsustainable. 

“Thanks to the Town Deal funding that the Government has earmarked for Goole, we have a unique and timely opportunity to invest £3.5 million pounds in the VPG to secure its future and create something to be proud of. There’s also the possibility of securing an additional £1 million from the Football Foundation the UK’s largest sports charity.

“At every stage of the process, Goole Town Council and the Goole Town Deal Board have listened closely to understand the competing needs of different users. There are hundreds of football and rugby team members in Goole, with football growing especially quickly among girls and women. And of course, there are also a smaller number of athletics users too.

“Great care has been taken to ensure that the proposed design retains athletics training facilities at the Victoria Pleasure Ground and we still very much hope that this can be the case. However, we have to be honest and realistic; we simply cannot pretend that everything everyone wants for various different sports can be accommodated. The site obviously its limitations in terms of size and, if we are to provide more land use for one sport, we won’t be able to  accommodate and support the many hundreds of grassroots players who struggle to find suitable facilities in Goole and, in many cases, have to travel out of town to train.

“Contrary to what some have said, we are committed to providing new and additional sporting opportunities at the site and, of course, we want to retain athletics facilities too. Work to find a solution to these issues continues. The shared goal of Goole Town Council and the Goole Town Deal Board is to create new and expanded sports facilities that are sustainable for many years to come and will provide more opportunity for more of Goole’s residents to use the VPG.”

Phil Jones, Vice Chairman of the Goole Town Deal Board, said: “The Board is responsible for ensuring that the strategic vision for the town is clear and capable of achieving its objectives within the timescales specified by the Government. To release the funding, we have to submit a thorough and viable business case to the Government for each of the projects that we hope to be able to deliver for the people of Goole. It’s a huge responsibility and one that none of us take lightly.

“The redevelopment of the VPG is just one of a series of projects identified in the Town Investment Plan and, because the site is operated by Goole Town Council, we’ve worked with them closely to develop the proposals.

“Other projects in the Town Investment Plan include the refurbishment of the town’s Market Hall; a Public Realm project to enhance the town centre; a Property Activation Fund to bring empty or under-used properties back into use; a project that involves refurbishing and enhancing East Riding Leisure Goole; enhanced flood defences and the creation of a ‘greenway’ corridor along the Dutch River; and the creation of ‘Opportunity Goole’, a ‘one-stop shop’ aimed at giving everyone easier access to information about the Town Deal, local job opportunities, business support and more.

“The Board sees all of these projects as individual pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that will come together to have a transformative effect on the town centre by 2026 – Goole’s bicentenary year – by stimulating long-term economic growth, giving residents equal access to training and job opportunities, improving connectivity to and around Goole, building a sense of pride in Goole and making the town centre a hub of activity that we can all feel proud off.

“As a Board, we do hope that the people of Goole will get behind the Town Deal programme and help us make the most of the opportunity to bring our town centre back to life. We want everyone to have their say and have openly encouraged all user groups to publicly make their views known to ensure that the debate taking place in the pages of this newspaper and on social media is a balanced one and that everyone’s views are being heard. It’s worth pointing out that the final set of proposals for the VPG will have to be approved by Goole Town Council, the Goole Town Deal Board and then secure planning consent before any redevelopment work can take place.

“This significant funding opportunity has arrived at a time of great economic uncertainty and it’s imperative that we act now before it is lost. Without this investment, the VPG will continue to deteriorate and there’s a real risk that it could end up closing its doors for good, which would undoubtedly be a huge blow to the town.”