A member of the council committee considering scrapping half the playparks in Angus has described the plans as a ”very bad idea.”
Montrose councillor David May, who sits on the neighbourhood services committee, said the proposal to reduce maintenance costs by ripping out play equipment in 50 parks in Angus should never have been pursued and described the prospect of the ”wholesale decimation” of playparks in Angus as ”appalling.”
He was responding to allegations by councillors in the ruling SNP administration who accused the previous Angus Alliance group of burying a report.
At last week’s committee meeting SNP councillor Glennis Middleton demanded an investigation into why the list of parks for closure, dating from May 2010, had never been brought to committee.
The convenor of neighbourhood services, Donald Morrison, said the delay now left the council with tougher choices and ”little leeway to manoeuvre.”
Mr May said it was not the case that the report had been hidden from committee, but that the Alliance members had decided to drop the plans.
He said: ”I was astonished by what Councillor Middleton was suggesting. As she is aware, council officers prepare reports, they then come back to the administration. It’s then up to the administration whether the report is taken forward to committee.
”When we were confronted with the report suggesting the wholesale decimation of playparks in Angus, we as a group rejected the report. We didn’t bring it to committee because we were so appalled at the prospect.”
The cost of removing the play equipment from all the parks is £140,000 to make a potential saving on maintenance repairs of £31,500 a year.
He said the saving could not justify the loss of play equipment and that this was an attempt by the SNP to ”deflect attention.”
Mr May added: ”This is a time when we should be trying to encourage more and more young people to participate in sport and play.
”You can not expect towns to just to have a handful of playparks. Not everyone has cars to travel to these parks and it is not reasonable to expect very young children to walk hundreds of metres.
”I think with the relatively small amount that’s being saved this is a very bad idea. It’s a bad decision to bring this report forward to committee and the SNP’s comments about the report being hidden are just an attempt to deflect attention.”
A public consultation into the proposal will take place before a final decision is made early next year.