Plans unveiled for new sports court at historic Burnley park

Plans have been submitted for a new multi-use games area in one of Burnley's oldest parks, Thornber Gardens.

The public park was created to celebrate Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee and named after one of the town’s most prominent industrialists and civic leaders, but has long been identified by the council as a public space in need of modernisation.

The application by Burnley Council would see a 375sqm fenced football and basketball court built on the existing grassed area of the park opposite Queen Victoria Road, which is already used informally for various ball sports.

Documents, submitted by the authority to its own planning department, say the scheme is intended to provide a safer and more formal sports facility for young people, with a three-metre fence to prevent any balls from leaving the play area.

The application describes the development as a way of encouraging physical activity among children and young people and making better use of an existing recreation area.

The planned addition to the park would include basketball hoops and new footpaths linking it to existing routes within the gardens.

Just one tree, a diseased ash, would be removed to enable the construction of the new playground. Existing mature trees around the site would be retained and the fencing finished in green to reduce its visual impact.

Environmental health officers have recommended that the facility should close at 8pm because of concerns that footballs striking the fencing could create noise for nearby residents during the evening. Lancashire County Council’s highways department has raised no objection.

If approved, the plans will also see the council realise an ambition raised in 2016 to modernise the offering at one of Burnley’s oldest public green spaces as part of the authority’s Play Area and Open Space review.

Thornber Gardens was first laid out in 1897 to mark the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria and was named after Alderman Caleb Thornber, who was mayor of Burnley between 1896 and 1898.

Caleb Thornber was a leading figure in the town’s cotton industry, serving as a director of the firm Benjamin Thornber & Sons, whose mills were among Burnley’s major employers during the town’s industrial heyday.

The gardens were created opposite the former Victoria Hospital, which had opened little more than a decade earlier and served the people of Burnley for almost a century before being demolished to make way for housing.

Burnley Council planners will make a decision on the application at a later date.