Wellington North held two recreation master plan information nights – Nov. 7 in Mount Forest and Nov. 9 in Arthur – to gather feedback on what residents would like to see in the future for recreation.
The master plan aims to guide park and recreation development as well as service delivery for both indoor and outdoor activities.
The goals of the plan, presented by Monteith Brown Planning Consultants of London, are:
– develop strategic vision for the delivery of parks and recreation;
– promote healthy living and physical activity;
– determine programming needs for all ages; and
– develop a needs assessment for parks and recreation facilities.
Monteith Brown Planning also identified recreation trends such as age-friendly programming, barrier-free design and the popularity of unstructured and self-scheduled activities.
“Hopefully we can find somewhat of a consensus … of what we need for the future so we can plan the activities municipally along with the anticipated growth to determine what services we need to deliver in the future,” said Mayor Andy Lennox.
In addition to the two public meetings, residents can fill out an online survey until Nov. 17 (at surveymonkey.com/r/WNrecMP).
The township has received over 400 responses to the survey so far.
Lennox said he would like to see age-friendly facilities and programming, with 35 per cent of the population over 55 years of age and 25% under 19.
“I’d like to see ways to integrate the generations more in activities and also integrate things like cultural activities and arts as well,” he said.
The township expects to have a draft recreation master plan completed early in the new year.
