Leckhampton Online

The launch on Sunday at the “Paws in the Park” event of LEGLAG’s campaign to obtain “Country Park” status for the attractive green fields just South of Leckhampton was “A Barking Success” according to their chairman Kit Braunholtz.

LEGLAG (Leckhampton Green Lands Action Group) were asking people to sign a petition requesting Cheltenham Borough Council and Tewkesbury Borough Council to designate these fields as a “Country Park”, thus giving a measure of permanent protection against the threats of large-scale development which have been hanging over this area for many years.

“We had an amazingly successful and enjoyable day”, said Kit Braunholtz, “People thronged to our stall all day to support us, and at the end of the day we had over three hundred signatures on our petition forms! Not bad for a campaign on its opening day. I am really chuffed!”

The signatures included those of the Mayor, Anne Regan, who had opened the event at noon, and several other Borough Councillors. Cheltenham’s MP, Martin Horwood also signed. Martin Horwood is and always has been a strong supporter of LEGLAG and in fact he helped engineer the Planning changes which should make this Country Park status achievable under the new Coalition Government. ( His father Don Horwood was one of LEGLAG’s founders in 1993, and was its Chairman for many years).

“Not only did we get all those signatures on our petition forms, which was our main objective” said Kit, “but we had much more success than we expected and recruited new members of LEGLAG”. (Membership only costs £3 for 3 years and you can download the membership form here).

“And to top it all, we made quite a bit of money by selling our entire stock of books of “Country Walks” describing walks through the fields we aim to protect!”

This successful day was of course only possible through the hard work of all our committee and other supporters, but most especially was due to the hard work and enthusiasm of Gerry and Jackie Potter, who were there (exercising their persuasive skills!) from start to finish. I particularly want to thank them for all they did!”

You can read more about LEGLAG’s campaign here, and meet Kit Braunholtz, Chairman of LEGLAG in his LeckhamptonOnline meets interview here.

Related posts:

1. LEGLAG to launch new Country Park Campaign to protect Leckhampton
2. LeckhamptonOnline meets LEGLAG’s Kit Braunholtz
3. Post your questions to Martin Horwood MP
4. The LeckhamptonOnline short guide to local democracy (with a little help from Martin Horwood.)
5. Meet Martin Horwood, Lib Dem candidate for Cheltenham