Finance chief Councillor Diarmaid Ward

PLANS to stop locking parks in the borough have been met with a backlash by locals who say the decision will create a “magnet” for anti-social behaviour.

The council spelled out plans in their most recent budget to save £100,000 by removing the “remaining park gate locking”, and replacing it with “a new evidence led tasking/ temporary locking process to react to and disrupt anti-social behaviour issues across all parks”.

Finance chief Councillor Diarmaid Ward said the decision was being made because the current system is “very inefficient” as the borough has “so many parks”.

He said somebody has to get in a van and drive around the borough and lock all the parks. “That process takes hours. There are very small parks where nothing happens, and to lock up tiny parks isn’t the most efficient use of resources. There are parks that need to be kept an eye on, and we’re looking at if we can do it differently, if we can do it in a more efficient way.”

The finance chief told the Tribune that they were “in the middle of discussions” regarding how the changes would be implemented.

He said: “How do we involve park guard? How do we involve staff at different parks? At the minute locking every single park every night regardless of size isn’t actually tackling the problem, particularly as the biggest park in the borough doesn’t have any gates.”

But Jonny Evans, chair of Friends of Wray Park Crescent, said that shutting the parks would make them “much worse no-go areas,” adding: “I’m not very impressed with this at all. They are deliberately creating a situation where bad things may happen.”

Mr Evans added that the most recent cuts comes “in a series of swathing cuts to park funding”.

“Each time they do make cuts, they damage the park infrastructure, and they end up becoming a resource for criminality, rather than sanity”.

Environment chief Councillor Rowena Champion said: “Since 2016, half of all parks in the borough remain unlocked, and we are proposing to manage the remaining parks in the same way.

“At a time when council budgets are being stretched to the limit and difficult decisions have to be made, this would help deliver savings, and also allow us to provide the service in a more evidence-led and flexible way.

“In addition to the current resources we have to manage anti-social behaviour, we are proposing to increase our park guard officers to work alongside the parks team and the council’s civil protection service.

“This would mean we can be more proactive in preventing anti-social behaviour, and reactive and responsive when it does occur, across all of our parks. In the coming months, we will be seeking feedback on our proposals”.