Stockport School of Gymnastics

 

The Development of the New Dialstone

 

A place of our own

We have been in rented accommodation for all of our history, 21 years of shifting kit out and away 4 times a week. We have tried to get our own place and came very close in 2004 when we were trying to move into an industrial unit on the Newby Road estate; that was foiled by the planners. You can read the stories by following the links on the right hand side of the screen.

So 2006 and we hear that a developer has approached Stockport Council with a plan to redevelop the Dialstone site. It goes a bit like this: The developer buys the site and knocks everything down and build houses. However as part of the deal he replaces the leisure facilities with something equivalent.

We call this the New Dialstone. Click on the links to keep up to speed.

The 1995 Plan                         Read more

Newby Road                            Read more

Offerton School                      Read more

The New Dialstone                 Read more

Dialstone Website                  Read more

RDPR (Public Relations)        Read more  

David McLean (Developer)   Read more

Where are we up to?

July 2007

The programme for the development starts to take shape. Lots of discussions  between all of the Stakeholders, such as Sports Development, Sports Trust and the Developer to agree the plans put forward by the Architect for the Sports Centre. The plans should be available in August and have to be agreed by October.

Planning process starts early 2008 and the building starts early 2009 and if all goes well we move in in Spring 2010. Seems a long way away, will the roof hold out until then?

We see minutes of the Dialstone Stakeholders Meeting and the Gym is in the plan. This is becoming real.

June 2007

We take the Architect to Fit City Salford to see the gym there. He is impressed with the set up. We send him the drawings and the ideas are now incorporated into the plans for the Sports Facilities. We will be given an area of 540m2, bigger than the Salford set up.

April 2007 

We meet with the developers Project Manager and the Architect and find out more about their thoughts. The agreement has not yet been signed, a little bit of feet dragging on the Council side. Meetings have taken place between Sports Development, The Sports Trust and the Developer as to what people want to see in the new centre. There is no consensus. Blackstone Park has been chosen. The Developer is interested in our ability to take on  a lease and thinks that they may be able to work directly with us to move this on.

February 2007                       

It is rumoured that the agreement has been signed between the developers and the council and the final costings are taking place. Basically the sums are how many houses can be built, to generate profit for the developer and leave enough money for how big a centre for us. The options seem to be towards a centre on Blackstone Park, behind the fire station, and houses on the Dialstone site. We hope that the discussions will start to take place on the management of the centre and that they will involve us. It could go quiet for the new couple of months.

31st January 2007

We learn that the process has been delay by approximately 3 months due to the legal agreement still not having been signed by Stockport Council. This exclusivity agreement is a stumbling block.

10th January 2007

Contact at last from the PR company with a letter explaining what has been going on

Read more