In December 2008, the Tring Sports Forum’s vision for sport in Tring gained significant attention in the local press. Since the announcement, there has been a healthy debate in the Letters pages from residents in the area. If you’d like to contribute to the debate, please just email mikejtring@googlemail.com.

Why have a vision at all ? Because sport in Tring is thriving but bursting at the seams.

There are more than 4,000 playing members in our community clubs. These non-profit making clubs are well managed, and the majority are delivering exceptional competitive sporting success – all well beyond the expectations of a small market town with a population of only 13,000. There are strong sporting links and interaction between schools and clubs; and more than 100 qualified coaches are providing coaching to adults and children every week.

A survey of local clubs in 2005 indicated that they expected an increase in playing members of more than 27% by 2015. This success and growth means all the clubs are in desperate need of additional playing facilities (outdoor and indoor), clubhouses, extensions, not to mention 360+ car park spaces.

What is the Tring Sports Forum ?

Tackling the growth problem club-by-club wasn’t working: the available parcels of land in the town are too small or isolated. Therefore in 2005 the Tring Sports Forum was formed to represent all the town’s sports clubs interests, and provide a vision and a voice for the growth of sport not only in the town, but also with Dacorum Borough Council, and Hertfordshire County Council.

What have we found ?

To build our vision, we worked with not only the sports clubs, and local and regional government, but the community at large, to find a solution that works for everybody. In doing this we uncovered several other pressing issues in the town that we could not ignore:

• Our local sports centre and swimming pool (at Tring School, run by Sportspace) is in a poor state and now well beyond economic maintenance or refurbishment.
• Tring School as a whole also needs investment: many of the school buildings are coming to the end of their useful life, and it does not have enough space for required additional facilities.
• Perhaps most controversial of all, the Government’s East of England plan is demanding more than 80,000 new homes for Hertfordshire by 2021; and Dacorum is expected to provide 12,000 of these (a potential population expansion of over 10%).

It was clear that any vision for the future of our sporting facilities needed to work alongside these other, wider, issues for the town. This is why our vision includes a site for both a job-creating business enterprise park, and a new secondary school with sports centre and swimming pool, even though we will play no part in developing them.

Is our vision set in stone ? No !

Our vision is a catalyst for discussion, a starting point to be considered and challenged as part of the process of building more concrete plans with each club. It illustrates what could be achieved and how it could benefit our community. It reflects the critical need for expansion of our sporting facilities, but also suggests how our secondary school could benefit from them.

We have included 10 metre eco-strips around the whole site, not only to provide a safe environment for walkers and runners, and to protect children walking to school, but also to ‘green’ the development, and buffer local residents from the sports grounds. There is an allotment area, and careful consideration of traffic flow to ensure it is kept away from existing residential areas.

Above all, our vision keeps the south-eastern approach to Tring as green as possible, as this area has been proposed for housing many times in recent years.