Committee of the Whole discusses 2024 Recreation and Cultural Needs assessment

By John Watson Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

The Town of Strathmore Committee of the Whole discussed the 2024 Recreation and Cultural Needs assessment during the May 14 meeting. 

This review follows a direction made by council, March 6, approving a capital budget request to fund a Recreation and Culture Needs Assessment. The report had first been brought to council during the March 19 regular meeting. 

At the time, council had directed town administration to bring the report to a future Committee of the Whole meeting for further review prior to being formally voted on. 

The report contains detailed findings from research and community engagement conducted by the town, and provides recommendations for short-, medium-, and long-term priorities and direction in regard to recreation and cultural facilities and amenities. 

“The information that put together those priorities was gathered through household surveys, interviews with community groups such as hockey, such as ringette, soccer, etc, then more of a focus group with those various groups,” said Mark Pretzlaff, director of community and protective services with the Town of Strathmore. “The utilization of the arena for example speaks about how much it is being used. Obviously the one thing that we should note in that is that, that utilization rate is specifically for our facility; it does not take into consideration any of the local arenas such as in Hussar or Rockyford and things like that.”

A classification system was established for the town’s priorities in regard to its facilities and amenities. 

These are detailed by whether facilities are considered to be in high demand with low supply, which would be prioritized for investment and improvement, high demand and high supply which would require active effort to maintain and safeguard existing infrastructure, and low demand facilities which would require strategies to boost demand or to limit further investments.

High, medium and low priority actions have been listed in the recreation and cultural needs assessment. Addressing the town’s ice arena facilities, which are currently evaluated to be at approximately 93 per cent utilization, appears on the indicated high priority actions list.

Data stemming from the assessment is able to be utilized to help shape the town’s budget matrix and potentially increase or rank existing capital projects higher if they align with the highlighted priorities. 

Conclusions drawn from the assessment suggest the town lacks adequate facilities and amenities which have not kept pace to adequately service its rapidly growing population. 

The full document has been made publicly available through the town’s public meeting agenda for the May 14 meeting.