Memorial Park – Make Your Voice Count

Letter to the Editor

To the Editor,

The Draft Master Plan for Memorial Park was presented to Meaford Council on July 13th and is available on the municipal website at www.meaford.ca/memorialparkplan (see pg. 65 for proposed site plan). Public comments are due by August 31st.

In the coming weeks the Advocates for Memorial Park (AMP) will be taking a closer look at the Draft Master Plan to see how it measures up against the results of the public survey we conducted last summer.

The newly appointed Parks Advisory Committee (PAC) members will have the opportunity to make recommendations before Council votes. As of yet, it is unclear when the PAC will hold its first meeting. The plan will be presented to Council for their endorsement no earlier than Sept. 14, 2020. In the span of just a few weeks PAC members will have a lot of information to consider. Following Council’s approval, the Master Plan will be used as a guiding document in long term planning for park infrastructure and the development of a business plan.

Two notable differences between AMP’s Public Survey and the Draft Master Plan as presented:

69% of public survey respondents were in favour of a 10 year plan. Research showed that communities across our region have 10 year plans. The Draft Master Plan is 25 years.
69% of public survey respondents wanted the park to stay “as it is now” with only 5.83% of respondents requesting larger camp sites. The Draft Master Plan aims to reconfigure both lower and upper campground “to create more pull-through campsites and campsites of a larger size”.