A PLAN to establish a clay pigeon shooting club on farm land at Rixton, Warrington has triggered massive objections.
More than 350 individual objections have been received from nearby residents, together with two protest petitions signed by 269 people.
In addition, there are objections from Birchwood Town Council, Rixton-with-Glazebrook Parish Council, the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England, Warrington Nature Conservation Forum, the borough council’s natural environment officer, Risley Moss Action Group and Woolston Eyes Conservation Group.
A number of borough councillors have also lodged objections.
The plan involves a change of use of land at Prospect Farm, Prospect Lane, Rixton, for use as a clay pigeon shooting club, with clubhouse and associated parking spaces.
There would be 10 timber acoustic shooting enclosures, 10 timer air rifle enclosures and five archery enclosures.
A report to be considered by the borough council’s development management committee says the site is already being used for clay pigeon shooting which can be carried out on 28 days in a year without the need for planning permission.
But a number of timber structures and mounding have already been introduced without planning consent.
The applicants – the Prospect Target Club – say the development would provide essential and secure training for amateur and professional shooters.
There are 300 members of the British Association for Shooting and Conservation (BASC) in Cheshire but only one accredited BASC facility in the county.
Ten new jobs would be created and five existing jobs retains and the facility would attract £400,000 a year in consumer expenditure at local hotels, food, retail and leisure outlets.
The application is supported by the National Disabled Shooters Club and the bulk of the site will be given over to landscaping, with 8,000 trees being planted.
Objectors say there are a large number of houses close enough to the site to be affected by the sound of gunshots.
A PLAN to establish a clay pigeon shooting club on farm land at Rixton, Warrington has triggered massive objections.
Uproar over clay pigeon shooting plan
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Gary Skentelbery
Experienced journalist for more than 40 years. Managing Director of magazine publishing group with three in-house titles and on-line daily newspaper for Warrington. Experienced writer, photographer, PR consultant and media expert having written for local, regional and national newspapers. Specialties: PR, media, social networking, photographer, networking, advertising, sales, media crisis management. Chair of Warrington Healthwatch Director Warrington Chamber of Commerce Patron Tim Parry Johnathan Ball Foundation for Peace. Trustee Warrington Disability Partnership. Former Chairman of Warrington Town FC.
8 Comments
Regular readers will know well of my objections to this piece meal and ad-hoc development that has been going on for some time without permission – yes it looks like it’s already complete without any planning permission in a trial by error process in my view and many other peoples!!!!!!
You can find out more about the planning application (the 2 previous ones were both withdrawn whilst development went ahead) by following this link to the WBC planning web site and entering the number 2012/19709 into the search.
The WNCF has lodged objections and you can add your own comments by visiting their Facebook Site https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Warrington-Nature-Conservation-Forum/110886079024465?fref=ts – this is a non-political organisation that is devoted to Nature Conservation and in this case has unanimously gone against and are very angry about this threat to rare wildlife that lives and visit the area. It is also in an area of SSSI sites that surround it such as Risley Moss and Rixton Clay Pits to name but two of the most well-known ones. As if it isn’t bad enough to have one sited near the close by Woolston Eyes SSSI !!! less than a mile away.
And then their are the poor residents who have not been consulted in any meaningful way and would have to put up with the sounds of gun fire, traffic etc for the corporate events amongst other activitities.
It seems that certain people don’t want anyone to enjoy themselves anymore. What dull lives they want everyone to lead. I am surprised that there aren’t any voles or Great Crested newts that would be disturbed by the noise. get a life people.
As an afterthought, the TT Races are very noisy and must cause great inconvenience to the natives, yet Geoff is an ardent fan of the event. Double standards methinks.
Perhaps someone should tell him that the pigeons don’t suffer, it is instant oblivion.
Our local shooting club often does clay pigeon shooting on a Sunday morning on farmland down by the ship canal near where the Thelwall Viaduct crosses it. Even stood outside, from less than half a mile away you can barely hear the guns over the M6 traffic
I’m a Marshall at the TT and when the races are on the roads are closed so in fact there is less noise and pollution during the fortnight. When I was across this year I spent a couple of days helping the Manx Wildlife Trust prepare their orchid fields for visitors in the North of the Island – very peaceful way of life and I never heard a gun go off once.
As compared to the other weekend when I was walking through Rixton Clay Pits and there was lots of gun fire – our poor dog froze and dug its claws into the path – her little legs were shaking, she was terrified. How are rare birds expected to nest in the fields next to the Clay Pigeon Shoot? Obviously you don’t go silver surfing about the area or speak to the local residents who want their peaceful surrounding to remain just that.
Indeed, double standards! Is Coun Settle suggesting that we listen to mresidents concerns? Now that’s a new one!
After being part of the council that has allowed the utter decimation of countless trees and so destroying the enjoyment of many thousands of people visiting Victoria Park to cater for the folly of floor defences against a once in a lifetime event, I would have thought Geoff and his cronies would have been relieved that someone was going to plant some trees for a change!