Yorkview Community Park will soon be brighter than ever.
Strathroy-Caradoc councilors unanimously agreed July 18 to approve a $450,000 project to have lighting and accessories for the stadium field and bantam diamond at the park installed by Musco Sports Lighting.
Community services director Rob Lilbourne said the municipality initially planned to complete as many as four sports lighting projects throughout the community this year to extend the times fields could be used, but that became challenging due to the rising cost of materials and inflation.
“The pandemic had different plans for us,” he said.
In response to those issues, Lilbourne said staff recommended amalgamating those projects to hopefully complete two this year, and that the Yorkview Community Park project will use about 95 per cent of the funds earmarked in the 2022 municipal budget for sports lighting projects. He said the project to install lighting at the bantam diamond and upgrade lighting at the stadium field could be done together due to their proximity.
“Our goal is to have the projects finished in 2022,” said Lilbourne. “If push comes to shove and the weather changes quickly on us in November, we may see that we have to push out and finish it up in March. Our goal is to not interrupt the users because they’ve been interrupted enough over the last two years.”
FIRE ACTIVITY INCREASES
The Strathroy-Caradoc fire department responded to 434 events in the second quarter of 2022.
Fire chief Brent Smith said the municipality saw about a 50 per cent increase in activity compared to the first quarter of 2022.
“Quite frankly, it’s all due to the normalization and no longer having some of the COVID restrictions, the traffic on the road, and people not necessarily being home to catch things in early stages amongst other things,” said Smith.
Additionally, 110 fire inspections were performed in the second quarter, with 43 orders for non-compliance being written. But Smith said those orders would all likely be resolved within 30 days.
“They’re all minimum in nature as far as being able to comply,” said Smith.