'Councillors have let down the children of Castleton'

A Castleton parent has been left disappointed by ward councillors regarding the re-development of Heywood Road’s park and children’s playground.

Sarah Croke has been campaigning for improvements to be made to the park for several years and was always told that nothing could be done, last year plans finally got underway.

However, Mrs Croke said: “The situation has been very badly handled and the ward councillors have let down the children of Castleton.”

Towards the end of last year money become available as the plans to create a new play area in Bamford were dropped.

The money to improve the park was made available from a central government grant called Play Pathfinder a scheme to create new play areas.

However, Mrs Croke says that residents were never told that the scheme was to fund play equipment for children aged 8 to 13 years old only, and not for the younger children of pre-school and primary ages.

A public consultation held in October, asking residents if they wanted a park suitable for older children or younger children resulted in over 60% voting for younger children’s equipment.

By chance Mrs Croke found out about the consultation and was able to vote, but she has said that the residents of Castleton were led to believe that the ‘redevelopment’ would be able to provide equipment for all ages – residents were not made aware that the funding was coming from Play Pathfinder, prior to Mrs Croke’s own investigations.

Following the consultation, Play Pathfinder approached the ward councillors, Councillor Peter Davison and Councillors Pat and Ted Flynn, and asked if they had any money that could be used to buy equipment for younger children as their scheme only provides for people ages 8 and over.

Mrs Croke says the councillors said no, they were asked for £10,000 and said they had nothing like that amount of money.

“Apparently they had £9,000 in the pot, any amount would have done just to buy something for the younger children,” said Mrs Croke

Mrs Croke added: “I asked (Councillor) Pat Flynn if there was anything that could be done to provide for the younger children. She told me that people had voted for a park for older people so there was nothing more that she could do.

“However, that is a lie; the results of the vote were for a park for younger children.”

Of course Mrs Croke is quite happy for older children to use the park, she said: “It is good to see older people at the park, but it could have been a park for everybody.”

After struggling to resolve the dispute with ward councillors Mrs Croke decided to sort things out for herself.

She met with the Pathfinder team to discuss the plans to help make the park accessible for all. There is a lack of equipment for younger children but there is still a grassy space available for children to run around.

Mrs Croke said: “As it stands, the park has effectively been reclassified from a play area suitable for all children up to 11 years old, to a play area suitable only for children over 8 years old.

“I find the loss of this valuable play facility to local children under the age of 8 years to be wholly unacceptable, and am angry that there was a lack of disclosure regarding the funding restrictions.”

“My hope now is that some of the 2010-2011 ward funding may be allocated to the park to purchase one or two pieces of equipment for the younger children to use, and that with the support of other residents, our park may be upgraded to suit the needs of the whole community – with or without the help of our Councillors,” said Mrs Croke.

Councillor Davision and Councillors Pat and Ted Flynn were unavailable for comment at the time of publication.