Plans to return ice rink to Chichester's Priory Park are 'totally unacceptable', residents say

They made their feelings clear at a public meeting of the Priory Park Society yesterday (April 29), which was well attended by business-owners, residents, society members and concerned Cicestrians.

While some residents believe the ice rink funds might be better deployed on, among other things, subsidising parking to drive up city centre footfall, others maintain that an ice rink could work in the city, but that Priory Park is entirely the wrong venue.

A rink was previously installed in the park in 2018, but, residents said it was a failure in almost every respect, causing 24/7 noise disturbance for residents, damaging the park ground and endangering its historic character.

One resident, who lives in the south west quadrant of the Priory Park area, claimed his sleep was disturbed every night for five weeks by the generators used to keep the ice rink running in 2018. “Chichester District Council may claim that this time the rink will run for a shorter period, but being awakened every night for four weeks, or three weeks, two weeks or even one week is totally unacceptable.”

If it goes ahead, it’s hoped the ice rink will encourage more visitors to Chichester City Centre during the busy festive period, filling the coffers of cash-strapped business owners struggling in the aftermath of Covid-19.

But some residents claim Priory Park is too far away from the city centre to help businesses much anyway, while businesses close to the park said 2018’s ice rink was more trouble than it was worth.

“The Park Tavern directly overlooks where the ice rink was or might be and, as a business, we’re surrounded by neighbours so we try our absolute best to keep noise to a minimum,” said Emily Rudd, manager of the nearby Park Tavern. “When the ice rink was on, we didn’t get more customers coming in buying drinks or spending money on food. We got people traipsing through in muddy shoes to use our toilets. It caused more problems than it did footfall for us as a pub. And it was an eyesore. It was noisy, and unpleasant. We weren’t even notified that it was going up until we saw a poster attached to a lamp-post somewhere up the road.”

Chichester District councillor Jonathan Brown (Lib Dem) attended the meeting alongside fellow councillor Adrian Moss in order to listen to residents’ concerns. Addressing the meeting, he said: “What members are trying to do is think about the future of Chichester, what we can do to make Chichester a vibrant, welcoming place, an exciting place at Christmas, and to make people feel like there’s a buzz about the town.

"None of that necessarily means (the ice rink) has to be at Priory Park, but that’s what we’re trying to do. Every location that we’ve looked at has issues, including Priory Park.” He went on to acknowledge the problems with 2018’s ice rink, adding “if we proceed and we are still very much looking at the evidence and listening, it will be because we are confident it will be substantially better than last time.”