Dear members
We are sure you have all heard the news that Bolton Council have withdrawn plans to build a new school on our Captains Clough Playing Fields.
Throughout this whole process we have kept a dignified stance with the local community and our landlords Bolton Council, whilst also attending meetings in relation to the protest to build the school on our football pitch green space. We have always refuted any rumours that we had communication with Simon Bramwell and his Academy Trust. We maintain this and throughout this whole process we have had no contact with him or the Academy.
We have updated our members accordingly throughout the different stages and have voiced our views and concerns initially to Bolton Council, Robertson’s, our residents, campaigners, protest meetings, Roger Heyes local councillor and Chris Green MP. From having being informed 3 weeks prior to a football season to move over 10 teams away from our venue we feared for the clubs identity for these teams who are all part our our wonderful club and the logistical nightmare this caused in the reconfiguration of our pitches and formats. This not including other factors it caused from a financial implication.
We have always maintained both sites to an exceptional high quality standard and have great working relationships with our residents particularly those houses that back onto our sites. Both sites have been kept in immaculate condition since we took the lease over in 2017 and the club have invested large amounts of members monies to keep both sites highly maintained. These positive relationships with our local residents have continued throughout the campaign. We thank them for their support. We hope to have our lease back in the coming weeks for both sites. This is imperative for our growth as a football and sports club; and for our community who use the facilities. Our 650+ young people deserve this!
We do hope in the future that those very people who have objected, attended protest meetings and signed petitions to stop the school being built and for signing the petition for village green status will support our wonderful football club in the future. The very fact that the 2 sites were used extensively for football and sport have certainly been a big part of the decision for Bolton Council to pull the plans. During the process Roger Heyes our local Liberal councillor visited our club on a packed Saturday morning and saw first hand the work we do for our young people and members. Roger was very impressed with Moss Bank Junior Football Club and hopefully going forward we can work more closely with Roger and our local elected party in maintaining these relationships.
We now move forward with our plans. We would like to thank each and everyone of our young people, parents, carers, coaches and volunteers for their support and understanding of our stance throughout. Let’s now get back to football and doing what we do best by serving our community with football, sport and activities. Thank you.
Moss Bank JFC