14 July (Part 3) - Saving the Splash Park. Imposed conditions near impossible to meet
Bexley council’s response to their Splash Park consultant’s report went up on
their website yesterday in the form of
a report to Cabinet. There is a meeting
scheduled for next Tuesday.
The content of the consultant’s report was
covered in
some detail in June. It listed the water quality problems and some expensive solutions.
The natural inclination of a council that said it didn’t want to spend any money
on repairing its infrastructure and objected to the £20,000 a year (less kiosk
profits) the park had cost to maintain was never in doubt. They unilaterally
announced its closure last Autumn and only an energetic campaign led by Faye
Ockleford and the three Belvedere councillors headed up by Daniel Francis
(Labour) has kept the bulldozers at bay.
Every uncaring Conservative will have been asking themselves “what are we doing
spending money on kiddies’ entertainment?”, hence councillor Tandy’s outburst,
“the Splash Park has got to go”.
The cost of fixing the Splash Park’s problems are undoubtedly high. Estimates
vary but they are all in the same ball park as what a Chief Executive with
little to do and under investigation by the police for Misconduct in Public
office costs each year, or if you prefer, what the Conservative councillors
refused to give up when UKIP suggested slashing allowances by a third.
To add to the woes the consultant’s estimate of the ongoing running costs were
higher than anticipated, in the region of £40,000 a year.
From the outset, Bexley council has said that Splash Park renewal must be cost
neutral and whilst money has been identified which might just be sufficient to
save the park, the responsible cabinet member refused to ring fence any of
those sources. Belvedere is not a Conservative council’s favourite place,
presumably that money will head south.
From every point of view the outlook for a rejuvenated Splash Park was never good. Putting councillor
Peter Craske in charge may have been the last straw. He is now advocating a commercial
venture or decommissioning. His absolute priority is no money can be spent.
To allow commercial interests to come forward the formal decision will be
deferred to the Autumn but Craske intends to strike a hard bargain if he cannot
be seen to kill the Splash Park now.
He wants a ten year bond, total risk transfer and insurance.
Any Conservative of the Slash and Burn persuasion,
happy to preside over a cultural desert will see Craske’s point of view. What is
a council doing running a paddling pool? They don’t run sports centres or gymnasiums, they
don’t any longer run museums, they wanted nothing to do with Bexley’s historic buildings and they
tried to sell off the allotments. If they can they will relinquish control of
libraries too. The council’s ambition for Bexley
is that it become a lifeless dormitory town at the end of Crossrail with the
increased tax base preventing it falling to bottom place in
the council tax league table.
The last thing Craske wants to do is run an entertainment facility for
people who might not vote for his party . The same mind set, in reverse, that saw
Craske spend money on CCTV in low crime Bexley village and none in Thamesmead.
For a Peter Craske document the cabinet report is remarkably free of outright lies. The most
notable is Craske‘s reference to the Splash Park being supported by only “a
small number of Bexley residents”. For someone who refused to meet any
campaigner how would he know anything about the numbers?
5,719 people on Facebook would beg to differ,
a number five to ten times larger than Bexley council has in the past taken as a
ringing endorsement of its budgets etc.
Deputy council leader Alex Sawyer who said several times that he didn’t want to see
the Splash Park closed will presumably be bitterly disappointed. A ten year
banker’s bond to cover the failure of any commercial enterprise must surely be
its death knell.
I take no pleasure in being a told-you-so
know-it-all, I hate the idea of the borough becoming
a Philistine’s Paradise and I am not at all confident that the Splash Park will
not see high rise accommodation with stupendous views across the Thames.
This photo from only half way up Heron Hill.
The covenant that prevents building on the site appears to be nothing but a myth.
It stops nothing being built on the site apart from another public house.
Bexley council’s Press Release.
Bexley Times report.
News Shopper report.