Walton Hall campaign's massive response

CAMPAIGNERS fighting to save Walton Hall and Gardens are stepping up their social networking drive to create a “massive response” to an online petition ahead of a crunch meeting with local politicians.
The ‘Save Walton Gardens’ group, which set up at the start of May, fears public access will be restricted if plans go ahead to develop the site into a luxury hotel and is angry that residents haven’t been consulted about progress with the development so far.
Now the group hopes activity on websites like Facebook and Twitter will increase the number of Warrington residents signing their petition numbers to make local politicians take notice.
It plans to show the petition to David Mowat, the newly elected MP for Warrington South as well as councillors involved in the scheme ahead of the first council meeting in June.
Supporters have been encouraged to personally contact five people they know and ask them to join the campaign, sign the online petition and put a personal message about the campaign on the bottom of all their emails.
Online support for the battle has more than doubled in the last two weeks. Over 4780 people have signed an online petition – 3,000 of those registered their support in the last 10 days.
The group’s Facebook page now has over 15,300 members – double the number seen at the start of May when the group launched.
Malcolm Eldridge, one of the campaign organisers, said: “Facebook and our website is now attracting a huge amount of support as people start to hear about the campaign from friends – it is really working for us.
“Considering we only started this online campaign a couple of weeks ago, the reponse has been really powerful. We’re hoping that the sheer number of people backing us will make the council sit up and take notice.”
On May 10, the ‘Save Walton Gardens’ Group wrote to the chief executive of Warrington Council requesting several documents and information be disclosed under the freedom of information act.
The letter requested to see detailed plans for how the public was and will be consulted about any future plans. It also asked how public priorities at Walton were taken into account when developing the Invitation top tender.
The group says concerned residents and friends of Walton Hall and Gardens were not consulted about proposed plans by Hotel group Contessa to invest £20 million to create a luxury hotel suitable for weddings and conferences.
But council chiefs have confirmed that their executive board will select a development partner in June and widespread consultation will follow.
Work to develop Walton Hall and Gardens could start in the spring next year but only if the council was satisfied the proposals would be in the interest of local people.
For more information, visit www.savewaltongardens.co.uk