DIY for the car park

The Wheelyboat

This article arises from the (unusually) concerted views of the AudlemOnline editorial team, with some of the various comments that have been sent in to the AoL chatbox.
We give two examples of how the Community came together to benefit residents.

Overwater Wheelyboat and Bus Services

The Overwater Wheelyboat and Bus Service is a great example of local volunteers and businesses coming together for the benefit of the village and visitors.

The Audlem Lass Transport service was created by the late Rodney Cottrell BEM (who initially purchased the Boat Hull), helped by Janet Maughan (The Overwater marina owner) and local volunteers as well as generous sponsorship from local businesses and organisations. The Audlem Lass has carried more than 4000 passengers since it started in 2011.

This spawned the Wheelyboat and Wheelybus Service which provides transport and outings for disabled people and involved fund raising of £25,000 for the Boat and £34,000 for the Wheelybus with running costs of some £25,000.

Covid restrictions prevented the Wheelyboat being used for outings but the Wheeybus has been available throughout the pandemic with volunteers providing transport to local hospitals etc in conjunction with ADCA

And as Covid restrictions are removed and the weather improves local volunteers will be providing their invaluable services again.

Audlem Tennis Club

Creation of a Tennis Club

The "I" in the article is John Tilling as a former long-standing member of Audlem Tennis Club.

I well remember arriving in the village in 1983 and being very pleased to find an enthusiastic tennis club in existence. The problem was that the tennis courts were in a dire state, and had to be completely relaid, or the whole facility would disappear.

Audlem Tennis Club was created and started trying to get funding to take over and totally refurbish the courts. At which point some bright spark suggested that we go the whole hog, and install floodlights as well.

The whole process was going to cost way beyond any cash resources the Club had at that time, and much fund-raising took place to enable it to happen at all.

But the point is that even then the lights could not have been afforded without the help of several local farmers, builders and electricity experts (not all of whom, it must be said, were necessarily tennis enthusiasts) so that the lights were created at a fraction of the cost that would have been quoted by an organisation doing the whole job "professionally". The non-experts amongst us duly wielded shovels, hauled on ropes and so on as directed and the result was a set of courts and associated floodlights that have been the envy of many a small Cheshire Tennis Club ever since.

And now the Turnpike Field Car park....

So can we not adopt the same self-help/DIY approach to provide ourselves with a parking facility on Turnpike Field?

We have to have a proper design for such a facility, of course, and proper planning permission and it would need proper project management. But surely the whole thing could be done at a fraction of the costs that have so far been suggested.

Alvar Jones
John Tilling
John Down