A campaigner has criticised York leaders for ignoring a city park with ‘dire’ facilities in its £750,000 improvement programme.
Nineteen projects will share the money from the City of York Council Parks Improvement Fund, replacing play equipment and upgrading paths.
Labour environment executive member Cllr Jenny Kent said the investment would be a huge boost for York’s parks.
But one open space which has got nothing is the King George V Playing Fields off Dodworth Avenue, also known as Doddy Park.
York campaigner Gwen Swinburn said this was completely wrong.
She told the place and scrutiny committee: “This 4.5 acre site established by legal deed as a memorial to King George V is dedicated in perpetuity for public recreation.
“The council has a statutory duty to maintain it. Yet Doddy Park, the only recreational space for deprived communities across the Groves. Bell Farm, Doddy Avenue and Pottery Lane, has seen no meaningful investment for decades.
“Its facilities are dire. Two seats, two rugby posts on an unplayable ground, a basketball hoop and a mud trail.
“The equally inaccessible Arran Place play area, with sparse equipment back from 2009 all sitting in mud, further highlights this neglect.
“The council’s floored scoring system ranks Doddy Park as the lowest priority misrepresenting it as serving one ward when it serves two.”
Five projects have been recommended for further investigation under the funding scheme, including proving a new access route to Fossway in King George V Playing Fields.
Villages missed out
Liberal Democrat Cllr Paul Healey, who sits on the place scrutiny committee, said leaving out parks in York’s villages made the council look city-focused.
Cllr Jenny Kent, the Labour administration’s environment executive member, said the Green Flag ambitions did not mean that smaller parks and spaces would be forgotten about.
She added the scoring system only applied to the current fund and future spending could be allocated using different criteria.
The council’s place scrutiny committee heard cash from local ward budgets could also be put towards schemes, with discussions due if the executive gives the scheme the go ahead.
Projects include new play equipment in Rowntree Park, Hull Road park and the Cemetery Road play area and a new surfaced footpath at the Cornlands Road open space.
The two improvements proposed for Rowntree Park would be done from April due to the risk of flooding during winter.
Play areas in Acomb’s Viking Road and its Green would also be improved, along with those in Chesney’s Field in Foxwood and Clifton’s Crombie Avenue.
- Additional reporting: Joe Gerrard – local democracy reporter
