Stockport Labour Group has welcomed a Lib Dem climb-down which has seen almost £200,000 of controversial Council cuts to parks and greenspaces in the borough abandoned.
Labour Communities Spokesperson Councillor Sheila Bailey said ‘The proposals that were put out for consultation by the Liberal Democrats would have had a devastating impact – removing permanent staff completely from some parks and reducing the hours they worked elsewhere across Stockport.
‘The response to the consultation was extremely strong, with hundreds of local people identifying that the plans would lead to ‘a continued deterioration in standards’. The passion expressed reflects the fact that local parks are the jewels in the crown of our borough, and are treasured by residents.
‘The Lib Dems have now been forced to admit in their own published response that the public ‘are almost universally opposed to the proposed service reductions’ – if they’d asked anybody they would have realised that our parks are one of the things that make Stockport such a great place to live and work and that they need to be protected, not undermined.’
As part of Lib Dem Council cuts of £21.1 million earmarked in August, a business case was produced which was designed to cut a total of £2.9 million from the public realm budget for 2016-17.
Despite the partial change in policy, there will still be £369,000 of direct cuts to frontline services which maintain the public realm in 2016-17, and Stockport is likely to see another fall in standards when these are implemented.
£167,000 will now be taken from ‘one-off resources’ to plug another hole in the Lib Dem Council budget, reinforcing a pattern of last minute policy reversals on key proposals which underline a lack of planning for future financial challenges.
Coun. Bailey added ‘Whilst I welcome the U-turn by the Executive Member for Supporting Places he publically admitted on 16th December that his own proposals would have had a detrimental effect on local greenspaces.
‘The question has to be asked why he was advocating these cuts for 4 months in the face of such clear opposition from across Stockport. It all shows a monumental lack of understanding as to what local people want their Council to be focusing on.
‘This breathing space now needs to be used to ensure that urgent work is carried out to protect our parks in the long term rather than this simply be about delaying cuts until after the local elections in May.’