Yes, it’s actually called a ‘Masterplan’, they aren’t plotting world domination (that we know of…)
If you have even been vaguely interested in Sport Officer Elections in the last 7 years, or play a grass pitch sport, you may have heard about the ongoing saga of the 3G pitch. This has been a focus of the Students' Union for around 7 years now and for good reason, we are a University renowned for our sporting success but one of very few that don’t have all weather facilities.
This year The SU reinforced our call for 3G Development on campus by including it in our Top Ten – ‘Secure commitment to a location and timeframe of building full sized 3G sports facilities on campus’
Since the summer we have been lobbying behind the scenes with Senior Management, openly called for the University to commit to both developing training space and full-sized facilities at Council/Senate/Students’ Union meetings. This has led to some traction; the issue was raised at the last Council meeting and movement is beginning to start.
The benefits of developing 3G facilities are wide ranging and contrary to popular belief could genuinely benefit EVERYONE on campus, not just sports people.
The obvious benefits are additional space to allow grass pitch-based sports to train and play. This would include all BUCS and recreational teams and would lead to an improved and consistent experience of sport for those students. Not only would sports people that play on grass reap the benefits, extra 3G space would free up a lot of astro space meaning that this could be used for a wide variety of other activities. Simply building a 3G training strip (a relatively small investment) would immediately free up around 25 hours of astro space and guarantee consistent training for 6 sports throughout the year.
Beyond sport, we all know that teaching, research and accommodation space is tight and that there are limited other spaces on campus that these facilities can be built. As 3G surfaces are almost always playable and can be used so much more per week than grass pitches (which need to recover between sessions) building them would mean the potential to unlock other grass pitch space for development. Eg build 2 3G pitches on St Johns field and free up space on one of the Eastwood pitches to build learning space.
The University has recently launched its ‘Masterplan Consultation’, this is looking engage a wide variety of groups and establish what they think the university should be prioritising over the next several years when it comes to building projects. The previous version of the ‘Masterplan’ led to the building of 10 West, 4ES South, The Quads and lots of others too. What the University says it is going to do in these documents tends to happen sooner or later.
I think that the voice of students that take part in sport needs to be loud and clear, that not only do we need this development to be committed to, but that it needs to start now, not in 3 years.
If you agree, please follow the link and fill out their ‘Masterplan Consultation’ if you’ve made it to this section of the blog then it’s likely you know what to say but just in case the 3 important questions and required answers are below, there are 10 total questions but only 3 really relevant to this!
Campus Masterplan Consultation
Question 1 – preference sport facilities
Question 2 – Specifically mention the development of 3G facilities being required as soon as possible and that a training area would be of specific benefit NOW.
Question 4 - Specifically mention the development of full sized 3G facilities.