By Councillor David Dean, Merton Council (Conservative, Dundonald ward)

At the full council meeting this week (March 28) the Labour administration finally admitted that there have been no Government cuts to the Council’s parks budget contradicting what Merton’s Labour spokesman said on national television a few weeks ago.

Labour took the decision locally to cut funding to open spaces, removing the park-keeper at Dundonald Recreation ground, which in turn keeps the toilets locked up and unusable.

This is a deliberate council-sponsored running down of our wonderful open space.

It certainly isn’t a question of money; by hiking service fees massively, the Labour-run Council is now running an on-going £12 Million budget surplus each year.

The real reason is that Labour want to run down our park then to claim in the near future that building a new school on Dundonald Recreation ground will allow the Council to re-open the toilets and to improve the facilities.

This is blackmail from Labour: to remove tax-payer funded services then to give them back only if we give in to their brutal concreting of our park.

The residents want the toilets reopened; they want a park-keeper brought back on site. We all want the surplus money at the Council used on facilities we pay for but don’t receive.

Dundonald Rec. is a very popular park, used by thousands weekly.

If you support this view then please let me know and I will pass on your views to the Council in an effort to get them to use their budget surplus where the residents want it.

We still await an apology from the Labour spokesman for the in-factual statements he made on the BBC London programme that broadcast the story about councils building on green spaces.

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