Showing posts with label grass cutting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label grass cutting. Show all posts

Sunday 1 July 2018

Lorber invites Brent CEO to take a walk in the park & survey residents' views on the meadows issue

Paul Lorber in Barham Park
Paul Lorber, former Lib Dem councillor has taken up the issue of the state of Brent's parks and the council policy to allow meadows to develop to encourage biodiversity - and to save £450,000 in grass cutting costs. Wembley Matters alerted readers to the proposal and critiqued it nearly a year ago. LINK

Dear Ms Downs

On a sunny summer day Barham Park in Wembley is usually full of people relaxing on the grass, playing games and chasing around with their children.

None of these is happening anymore since Brent Council to stop cutting the grass.

What has been created are not ‘wild meadows’ as has been claimed as these need planning, preparation, proper planting and cultivation - but a mess full of uncut grass and weeds. As a result of Council action local people are being deprived of usable access to the Park - at the height of the summer.

There was of course no proper consultation about this and no proper consideration of the consequences. All the talk of encouraging local people to participate in recreation and exercise is of course a lot of Brent hot air.

As you know schools will break up soon and our Park will be needed by families and their children.

As I was advised that the next cut in a Barham Park will not now take place until October it would seem that Brent Council is happy to ignore the needs of families and their children over the 6 week summer holiday and keep our parks overgrown and neglected.

I cannot imagine that officers could be so irresponsible to recommend this course of action and Councillors so stupid as to accept this advice.

I strongly recommend that you undertake a tour of all the Parks Brent and ask local people what they think of the state of their parks and the current Council policy of effectively keeping them out.

Hopefully such a tour will persuade you that the current position is not acceptable and you will recommend immediate action to get the grass cut and the parks open spaces brought back to an acceptable standard so that local people can once again use and enjoy them.

I look forward to your prompt action on this scandal.

Yours faithfully

Paul Lorber
Local resident and taxpayer and user of Barham Park