Waterside Close

Many attractive short streets and cul-de-sacs have sprung up in Bourne in the past thirty years as a result of the housing boom and the new areas of the town now cover a greater space than the old. Waterside Close, off Stanley Street, is typical of them, lined with smart modern homes of red brick, neat gardens and an assured air of late 20th century suburbia.

There is one big difference here to other similar roads in that Waterside Close has a small pond at the end, a stretch of land isolated when housing development took place 25 years ago and now home to an abundance of wildlife, ducks and moorhens, bulrushes and other aquatic plants. It was once an attraction for small boys to go fishing but in recent years has become overgrown and choked with algae and unable to support marine life but it was not always so.

In fact, the narrow 100-yard stretch of water known as the Stanley Street pond has had a chequered life and residents of Waterside Close and nearby Home Close, Broadlands Avenue and Lodge Road will not have forgotten what happened in years past when youngsters were attracted to the area because of fishing. There were reports of vandalism, fires, threats to residents and verbal abuse as children flocked to the area day and night, catching and mutilating fish, mallard chicks, setting fire to shrubbery, uprooting plants, throwing stones, mud and water bombs and even brandishing air pistols.

The National Rivers Authority eventually stepped in and removed all of the fish because hundreds of others had died due to children overstocking the pond with others from the lakes in Bourne Woods. Since then, the area has become a delight for local residents with young families coming to feed the ducks and enjoying the rural atmosphere in an urban setting.

But this does not suit everyone and in the summer of 2007, schoolboy brothers Alex Dodd, aged nine, and seven-year-old Jack, who live in nearby Bramley Close, suggested that the pond be reclaimed for angling at public expense. They said that at weekends and holidays they had to travel further afield with their father to pursue their sport but would rather use facilities nearer home if they were available and they are so anxious to have the pond cleared that they wrote to the Mayor of Bourne, Councillor Jane Kingman Pauley, to enlist her help and she was sympathetic. As a result, the subject has been put on the agenda for discussion at a meeting of the highways and planning committee on Tuesday September 25th.

WRITTEN SEPTEMBER 2077

See also Fishing in Bourne