Plans to protect Luton parks being drawn up because council is 'ignoring' its own local plan says councillor

Scrutiny board says plans to protect parks and green spaces in Luton need timescale attached
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Plans to protect parks and open spaces in Luton are only being prepared because the borough council is ignoring its Local Plan, a meeting heard.

A report was drawn up about whether Luton could benefit from a similar arrangement to one entered into by Liverpool City Council with Fields in Trust to safeguard the city’s parks and green spaces, through a Deed of Dedication.

LBC’s business intelligence team were commissioned to produce a way of measuring the social value of parks and green spaces across the borough, according to a report to its overview and scrutiny board.

Wardown ParkWardown Park
Wardown Park

“The tool was designed so that each area has been assigned a score based on socio-economic and environmental factors locally, with the highest scoring green space given a higher priority,” said the report.

“Indicators one to five give a higher score for negative socio-economic factors, such as high deprivation, while six to ten consider environmental factors, such as air quality and community assets.

“The ten include population density, the index of multiple deprivation, unemployment claimants, and the prevalence of obesity in schoolchildren.

“Areas with the highest score are those where the green space is deemed to have the most social value.

“Parks are defined in the current Local Plan in three groups, based on their size, infrastructure and function.

“These are district urban parks and gardens, such as Wardown Park, Stockwood Park, and Lewsey Park, neighbourhood urban parks and gardens, including Kingsway Park, Great Bramingham Park and Memorial Park, and small amenity green spaces.”

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Referring to the 167 sites overall, Liberal Democrat Wigmore councillor Peter Chapman suggested the board expects all of the ‘A’ category ones to be done within a certain time period.

“If we just do one a year. what are we sitting here for? We’ll all be dead way before that. What’s the point of doing all this work?

“We approve the methodology and recommend to the executive, once this process has been completed, all the district and urban parks are completed in a five-year period.

“There are probably ten of them. That’s five years to spend £50,000 to get these protected forever.”

Liberal Democrat Stopsley councillor David Wynn said: “This is only being put forward because we’re trying to protect our green spaces from Luton Borough Council.

“The local authority has chosen to ignore the protection put in its own Local Plan, with two recent examples, Wandon Park and Wigmore Park.

“What the board asked for is that all the parks are protected. I don’t think we need a complex analysis tool to do that.”

Labour Farley councillor Mahmood Hussain said: “It’s not a quick process because we haven’t any spare cash sitting somewhere in the council. Every member here is committed to protecting the open spaces.”

Labour South councillor Javeria Hussain said: “You can’t have an immediate timescale because it’s a complex process, and there are budgetary restraints and resource constraints.”

The board agreed with the proposed methodology, commended it to the executive and asked for a provisional timetable for achievement.

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