Leisure watchdog slams parks sell-off plans!

Controversial plans to sell-off nearly 200 acres of city parkland and open spaces have been criticised by the Council watchdog responsible for culture and leisure services.

The Labour-run authority's recently unveiled Parks & Green Spaces Strategy has provoked a storm of protest in the wake of the revelation that civic chiefs plan to sell twice the amount of land originally planned and only plough back 50% of the proceeds (rather than 80%) to improve the city's parks.

At last night's Quality of Life Scrutiny Commission, Conservative chairman Cllr Richard Eddy slammed the move as "nothing less than a corporate raid" on ambitious plans to enhance Bristol's green spaces over the next 20 years.

Cllr Eddy successfully won all-party support for a motion which expressed "great concern" over the changes in the Parks & Green Spaces Strategy which, it said, "risks undermining the proposed Capital Investment Programme by antagonising key stakeholders, Elected Members and local communities."

The Commission went on to demand that the Cabinet invest a minimum of 80% of capital proceeds from leisure land in upgrading the city's parks and open spaces.

Speaking after the meeting, Cllr Eddy (Con, Bishopsworth) said: "The Labour Cabinet's eleventh-hour change to the Parks & Green Spaces Strategy makes a mockery of the extensive consultation undertaken last Autumn.

"Hitherto, there was widespread support for the notion of disposing with low-quality leisure land and reinvesting the vast bulk of the proceeds in the city's green heritage.

"This sudden about-turn, doubling the amount of land for sale and slashing the proportion reinvested in our parks to fifty percent, risks fatally undermining the policy.

"I am delighted that Conservative, Green, Labour and Lib Dem councillors on the Quality of Life Scrutiny Commission united in support of my plea for the Cabinet to urgently reconsider this matter when it meets again on 21 February."

Back to Local News Index 22 January 2008