Tag Archives: parks

Let us decide the fate of our open spaces

By Jim Hardaker | Wed 6th January 2016 - 2:58 pm

Across the UK, cash-hungry councils are selling off parks and open spaces to fill up their coffers.

We’re supposed to accept that in these times of diminishing government spending it’s necessary to sacrifice some niceties – but the loss of recreational green land that’s supposed to belong to us all is going too far.

To think that councils are using the funds from selling our parks to deliver services is optimistic at best. Land sale is capital. Services come out of the revenue budget.

Yet still it seems hard for the public to make a case that their parks should be saved. Councillors claiming to represent their constituents clearly feel that silent majorities outweigh the hundreds and even thousands who sign petitions, and perhaps they do. But something needs to change or we will never have a way to know for sure.