• I HAVE followed the debate over plans for Barnard Park with increasing frustration for the past few years.

It is particularly galling that a group of sporting organisations now appears able to block a plan that balances the needs of all park users, while offering nothing to support the alternative.

It would be a huge service to all of us if the Tribune could hold the Football Association, the Rugby Football Union, Arsenal in the Community and Sport England to account and ask them exactly how much they are prepared to commit in real cash terms to renovate the existing pitches.

I keep hearing that they have offered “contributions” (Park’s neighbours need a place to play proper sport, October 13), but I have yet to see any concrete evidence of these contributions.

By contrast, Islington Council has invested time and money in lengthy, democratic consultations with the community and is now being criticised by a vocal minority because they do not want to see a compromise struck between the needs of footballers and the rest of the community that uses the park.

Let’s hear what these organisations representing the footballers really have to offer – it is about time that groups like Arsenal in the Community put their money where their mouth is and contributed some of the Premier League’s riches to the borough of Islington.

If they are not going to put a firm offer on the table, perhaps it is time for them to back out of this debate.

GREG BARROW, N1