Green light for park

Failsworth Lower Memorial Park

A second area of Failsworth Lower Memorial Park will be registered as a charitable trust by Oldham Council.

The formal area of parkland including the bowling greens will be registered as a trust following the application to declare the adjoining park playing fields area also a trust.

The playing fields, sandwiched between the Lancaster Club and the formal park area, off Broadway, were controversially chosen as part of the site for the new Latics stadium last year. But there was an outcry because the fields and park had been paid for by money from the Failsworth War Memorial Committee, raised in memory of 240 local men who died in the First World War.

Earlier this year, the fields were declared a charitable trust. A special Oldham Council sub-committee was set up to decide the trust’s future.

In August, members voted to transfer the trust to two other sites — 12.61 acres of land at Warwick Road and 13.1 acres at Vale Lane/Medlock Vale, leaving the Broadway site free for the stadium plans.

A report on the council’s website says even though the formal part of the park is not included in these plans, members of the public are concerned about its future and want it formally registered with the Charity Commission.

Oldham Council — which had included a note with the park’s deeds implying it had trust status — says it will now approach the commission.

The decision to go ahead was taken on October 5.