CAR PARK SAGA
In 2011 Surrey County Council announced they were going to put a two hour waiting period on the Burges Way car park (our main car park) plus other waiting restrictions on roads around the area. The then club captain Graham Galliford spend many hours negotiating with the councils, that is Surrey and Spelthorne, advising them two hours was insufficient time for a bowls match. They did finally agree to increase the waiting time up to four hours, and this was all agreed by Liz Borthwick, who was representing Spelthorne Council and it was due to be implemented, but we then had the great floods of 2014 and nothing ever happened after that.
Then, after several more years of discussion with Spelthorne Council they agreed Staines Bowling Club could develop the small area in front of the pavilion into a private club car park. This would give us about 8 to 10 spaces, not enough but better than none.
However, the club would have to finance ALL costs including the relocation and purchasing of new racking for the museums artefacts, currently stored in two large sea containers, plus all new drainage and ground conversion costs.
This work would cost about £25,000 so the council advised us to apply for grants to cover the costs. After applying for at least 20 different grants we only managed to obtain half the funding, so the project had to be scrapped.
As of today (2019) no restrictions have been placed on the Burges Way car park and the land at the rear of the pavilion is still only waste ground and still houses the two large sea containers.
