{"id":360,"date":"2014-11-07T19:27:46","date_gmt":"2014-11-07T19:27:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.westminsterpark.org.uk\/?p=360"},"modified":"2014-11-07T19:28:07","modified_gmt":"2014-11-07T19:28:07","slug":"message-from-the-fowp-chairman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.westminsterpark.org.uk\/?p=360","title":{"rendered":"Message from the FOWP Chairman"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #353535;\"><span style=\"font-family: ArialMT, sans-serif;\">Westminster Park has enjoyed another good year. A fine spring followed by an unusually warm and sunny summer and then a very mild autumn has resulted in\u00a0<\/span><\/span><span style=\"color: #353535;\"><span style=\"font-family: ArialMT, sans-serif;\">the park being a hive of activity. There was one sunny weekend in September when all the football pitches were in use with lots of spectators, cricket was being played, there were croquet and bowls matches in progress, the Glan Aber and the newly refurbished public tennis courts were fully occupied, there were people exercising in the outdoor gym and in the multi-use games area, a bevy of energetic cyclists on the BMX track and lots of children,\u00a0<\/span><\/span><span style=\"color: #353535;\"><span style=\"font-family: ArialMT, sans-serif;\">parents and grandparents in the children\u2019s play area. The grassed areas and the fine turf lawns and pitches have been well maintained, the annual plantings at the Hough Green entrance and in the caf\u00e9 area have looked very\u00a0<\/span><\/span><span style=\"color: #353535;\"><span style=\"font-family: ArialMT, sans-serif;\">attractive, and the foliage on the park\u2019s wide variety of trees has looked particularly splendid in the spring and autumn sunshine.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #353535;\"><span style=\"font-family: ArialMT, sans-serif;\"><span>In addition to ensuring that standards are maintained at a time when council finances continue to be squeezed, the main challenge facing the park is the future of the caf\u00e9 and the nine hole golf course. Both have been managed by Brio but have not lived up to earlier expectations. Our understanding is that the Council is currently reviewing other options for future management of these core assets. There is a high level of local voluntary participation in the various sports clubs that meet in the park and it would be nice to see the formation of a similarly active and enterprising community golf club\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"color: #353535;\"><span style=\"font-family: ArialMT, sans-serif;\">as well as a caf\u00e9 offering a much more attractive range of food and beverages. The door is wide open for local initiatives but, unless new ideas and proposals are forthcoming, there is a real risk these facilities will\u00a0<\/span><\/span><span style=\"color: #353535;\"><span style=\"font-family: ArialMT, sans-serif;\">wither on the vine. To repeat the message in the last newsletter, if anyone has an interest or knows of anyone else with an interest in developing these facilities, the Friends of Westminster Park would be delighted to hear and to discuss possibilities. Keep in touch and feedback is welcome though the FOWP&#8217;s website at www.westminsterpark.org.uk\/ .<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #353535;\"><span style=\"font-family: ArialMT, sans-serif;\"><span>David Guyton &#8211;\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"color: #353535;\"><span style=\"font-family: ArialMT, sans-serif;\">Chairman<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Westminster Park has enjoyed another good year. A fine spring followed by an unusually warm and sunny summer and then a very mild autumn has resulted in\u00a0the park being a hive of activity. There was one sunny weekend in September when all the football pitches were in use with lots of spectators, cricket was being [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westminsterpark.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westminsterpark.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westminsterpark.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westminsterpark.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westminsterpark.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=360"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.westminsterpark.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":362,"href":"https:\/\/www.westminsterpark.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360\/revisions\/362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westminsterpark.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westminsterpark.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westminsterpark.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}