YEOVIL NEWS: Giant water slide fun coming to town?

COUNCIL officials are to investigate whether it would be possible to bring a giant water slide to Yeovil town centre.

Members of Yeovil Town Council’s promotions and activities committee met last night (Tuesday, September 9, 2014) to discuss possible “new initiatives” for the area.

And it was committee chairman, Cllr Jon Gleeson, who suggested the giant water slide idea – just a few days after a similar event was successfully held in the High Street of Chard – could come to Yeovil.

“If it’s good enough for Chard, then it has surely got to be good enough for Yeovil,” he said.

Cllr Gleeson said he was impressed by what he saw when he looked at photos of the Chard water slide on the Yeovil Press website – right here at http://www.yeovilpress.co.uk/blog/2014/09/07/chard-giant-water-slide-september-2014/.

“It looked as if it was a really good fun day,” he said. “There seemed to be a real Carnival atmosphere.”

More than 350 people went down the water slide - nearly 300ft long - in Chard's High Street and raised somewhere in the region of £1,000 for local charities.

Councillors agreed last night that they should get in touch with Chard Mayor, Cllr Jenny Kenton, who led the water slide event on Sunday (September 7, 2014), to find out the costs involved and other practical issues.

PHOTO - TOP: The near 300ft giant water slide in Chard's High Street on Sunday (September 7, 2014).

PHOTO - RIGHT: The Mayor of Chard, Cllr Jenny Kenton, gets ready to go down the slide.

Yeovil Mayor, Cllr Mike Lock, said he did not wish to “pour water” over the suggestion, but he had heard that there had been a lot of problems in organising the Chard event.

He told councillors that Cllr Kenton had told him there had been plenty of “red tape” to negotiate before the event could go-ahead.

But he added: “The Chard Mayor has said that she would help us if we wanted to look at doing the same.”

The council’s “new initiatives” cash pot currently sits at £41,300 and it is up to the authority’s various committees to put forward projects for funding. These supported bids for financial help will be considered in November at the council’s all-important policy, resources and finance committee and then referred to the town council in December for a final decision.

Councillors backed Cllr Gleeson and Cllr Martin Bailey joked it would not be the first time that he personally had been on a “slippery slope.”

His tongue-in-cheek idea of using Forest Hill in Yeovil may understandably be ruled out for being “slightly” too steep, but the more sensible option as suggested by Cllr Gleeson was using Lower Middle Street in the town centre for the slide.

PHOTO - ABOVE: The giant water slide in Chard on Sunday proved a big success and great fun.

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