BRIGG TOWN MAYOR PRAISES HARD WORK PUT IN ON REC REFURB

 

Brigg Town Mayor Coun Ann Eardley congratulated North Lincolnshire Council on the newly refurbished Brigg Recreation Ground.
She did so at the first Brigg Town Council monthly meetings after the official opening ceremony, performed by Andrew Percy MP.
She passed on particular thanks to Coun Carl Sherwood, who, as well as being a town councillor, is the Cabinet Member overseeing matters like health, fitness and sport at North Lincolnshire Council.
"It's a magnificent thing for Brigg," the Town Mayor told the meeting in the Angel Suite.
Coun Carl suggested credit was also due to his Brigg & Wolds Ward colleagues Coun Nigel Sherwood and Coun Rob Waltham.
Coun Brian Parker said of the Rec refurb: "It's a big thing for Brigg."
Coun Mike Campion also thanked Coun Carl for all the work put in, but questioned "the protocol" surrounding the official opening ceremony.
Not every member of Brigg Town Council had been invited to attend. And although the Mayor of North Lincolnshire had been present wearing his chain of office while pictures were taken, the Brigg Town Mayor had not been wearing hers.
"Had she been asked not to? he inquired.
Coun Carl replied that he had no knowledge of any request about chain-wearing.
But he stressed that the money to redevelop the ground had been found by North Lincolnshire Council. "And if you do some good, why not get some recognition for it?"
In terms of inviting people to attend the official opening, he asked: "Where do you stop with the invitations?"
The Town Mayor said she was told it was a North Lincolnshire event as that council had provided the facility.
Brigg Recreation Ground was created from farmland after the Second World War by  Brigg Urban District Council, which ran it happily until local government reorganisation in the early 1970s.
The newly-formed Brigg Town Council chose not to take on the ground's upkeep and therefore it  passed to the new Glanford Borough Council.
It built a changing room block in the early 1980s. But when Glanford was thinking of spending money on the Rec it was often pointed out by rural community representatives that even small villages were paying for their own playing fields. So why should Brigg's be funded by Glanford chargepayers?
During the tenure of the borough council, they changed the name  from Brigg to Glanford Recreation Ground.
That seemed a small thing for Brigg to accept as the borough was paying for the facility off Wrawby Road. And definitely subsidising it, as income never matched outgoings.
Upon its creation in 1996, North Lincolnshire Council, the unitary authority, took over Brigg Recreation Ground.
Hindsight is often said to be a wonderful thing. 
But it was definitely not local government's finest hour in the 1970s when main Brigg assets the Rec Ground and the Corn Exchange were allowed to pass out of local ownership and management.
Had the new Brigg Town Council taken on the Corn Exchange and the Rec, Brigg ratepayers would definitely have had to cough up more cash every year.
But would that have been a price worth paying?

PICTURED: The official opening of the refurbished Recreation Ground. Left to right: Coun Carl Sherwood, Andrew Percy MP,  Coun Rob Waltham, Brigg Town Mayor Coun Ann Eardley, Coun Nigel Sherwood, North Lincolnshire Mayor Coun Trevor Foster.