SUPPORTING HEALTH AND WELLBEING

The need to promote health and wellbeing of our residents will be at the heart of the NDP policies and proposals. The 2011 Census provided information about limiting illnesses in Stainforth. The Census shows that 13.8% of the population had day to day activities limited a lot and 10.9% had day to day activities limited a little. 9.2% reported very bad or bad health.

The 2016 Public Health England Stainforth Ward Report1 shows the following: The percentage of people with bad or very bad health is significantly worse than England average, including over 24% of people with a limiting long-term illness or disability. There are significantly more emergency hospital admissions for COPD and incidences of Lung Cancer than the England average. There are also significantly more hospital stays for alcohol related harm and injury than the England average. There are significantly more cases of premature mortality relating to cancer and respiratory diseases than the England average. All these factors point to significant alcohol and smoking related issues in Stainforth.

It is increasingly recognised that planning policies can make a positive contribution to supporting healthy environments and promoting healthy lifestyles. This can be for instance through promoting walking and cycling (see Section 7), protecting valued green spaces and identifying new areas suitable for recreational activities, and protecting local community facilities.

Public Health Comments: Regular walking can help to reduce the risk of heart disease, stroke and high blood pressure and improve the flexibility and strength of joints, muscles and bones. Investing in walking can support local economies by increasing footfall, improving accessibility, attracting new businesses and increasing employment levels.

Improving the walk-ability of a community facilitates social interaction and enables people to develop new friendships, share knowledge and information about local events and activities, and make contributions to the local community.

Public Rights of Way play an important role in enabling people to access local green spaces and local amenities. They provide opportunities for leisure walking, cycling and horse riding which helps to improve mental and physical health. They also provide a green route for active travel ensuring exposure to poor air quality is minimised.

Green Spaces and Recreation

Existing green spaces in Stainforth are considered in Doncaster's Green Space Audit 2013.[1] Map 6 below identifies existing green space in the town, together with their category of use.

The community profile for Stainforth notes that there are a lot of amenity (in housing) sites which when well managed provide a positive appearance to an area. There is also 1 formal green space, 6 informal green spaces, a woodland, a greyhound stadium and a marina / mooring. East Lane, New Park Estate and Back Lane have play equipment. The desktop analysis identifies the priority as the provision of additional informal and formal provision and possibly play equipment and the priority site is Stainforth Miners Welfare / Buntings Wood.

Overall the audit identifies deficiencies in informal, formal and public provision in Stainforth.

The responses to the residents' questionnaire demonstrated support for improvements to open space provision in Stainforth. 88.2% of respondents supported more green space in Stainforth.

The responses to the Issues and Options consultation showed that the public would like to see more sports facilities and usable green space in Stainforth, in particular the creation of a country park on the pithead site and a new sports and leisure campus on the Miner’s Welfare.

Community Facilities

Stainforth also has a good range of local community facilities. These include: Town Council offices, the community library, the Resource Centre, Long Toft community centre, the Credit Union, the Post Office, Poulton Close community bungalow (Phoenix Centre), The Hope Centre, catholic community hall, Tae Kwon Do club, the Youth Club, Hatfield Main Club, Central Club, Stanley Gardens community bungalow, Filed Road Surgery, and Doncaster College offices and training rooms.

90.2% of respondents to the questionnaire supported more community and leisure space in Stainforth.

At the Issues and Options stakeholder event suggestions included investment to provide a skate park similar to the facility at the Miners’ Welfare and to create a health and leisure campus on the Miners’ Welfare. The health and leisure campus will include a new community centre with a soft play facility, community hall and a healthy eating café. There will also be a dog walking area, and new football pitches suitable for full size and 5 a side football to bring in revenue to the Town Council. S4ALL is currently in the process of securing funding for the new community centre project and Stainforth Town Council will be looking to secure funding for the pitches at a later date.

Stainforth Town Council have voted to give a 99-year lease for the local charity S4ALL ltd to build a new community centre on the site where there is currently a playground. This playground will be suitably relocated to be closer to the MUGA and the Skatepark. S4ALL were also invited to manage the site to create a holistic Health and Leisure Campus for the people of Stainforth, thus regenerating what is currently a run down and under-used facility. This leased area will be designated for community use.

Stainforth Country Park

The responses to the residents questionnaire showed that 93.4% wanted to see a country park created on part of the slag heaps.

At the Issues and Options stakeholder event, there were suggestions that a new country park could include such facilities as a miniature sized railway, tennis courts, picnic space, a mini maze, ponds, lakes and trees and a scenic walk. The committee is happy for the area in section 6.7 to be flattened for the development of new housing, whilst leaving the spoil on the country park area to be used for landscaping.

The responses to the wider Issues and Options consultation showed that massive support for the country park, people also wanted to see hills and landscaping on the country park. However, questions were raised regarding the Unity Development and whether Waystones corporation who claim to own some of the spoil will remove it for use on the proposed canal side marina.

http://www.localhealth.org.uk/GC_preport.php?lang=en&codgeo=E05010744&nivgeo=ward_2016&id_rep=r03

[1] http://www.doncaster.gov.uk/services/planning/green-space-documents