The Council is to consider handing over control and management of the West Bank Park to a residents group.
A largely impenetrable report is to be considered on 24th February which will recommend that the Council seeks grant funding from an organisation known as NESTA*.
This will “support changes to parks management and maintenance systems – including potential changes to maintenance regimes, restructuring contracts and maximising the productivity of particular landscapes”.
The NESTA project gives the example of holding concerts in the parks as a way of increasing income.
The report later talks of
”exploring what community use and income generating possibilities 14 New Lane offers, either in its current form, or if rebuilt and extended, and using this to fund the future care and development of the whole site”.
This is pretty much now standard “Labour speak” for the withdrawal of Council funding, with residents left to pick up the burden.
A similar project led to the semi privatisation of the Libraries Service.
The newly independent “social enterprise” York Library service now finds that its Council funding is being cut by £200,000 over the next 2 years raising fears that several smaller facilities could close.
Parks – including West Bank – are also set for cuts in this years budget with £122,000 being lopped off.
Parks will be left unlocked with minimal maintenance “unless local groups step in to help”.
York has few formal parks and West Bank is the only one in the Acomb area.
It seems that a laudable initiative from some local residents – who wanted to set up a heritage centre at 14 New Lane to explain the history of the site – is now being used as a smokescreen to cover major changes to the use of the park.
There has ben no consultation with most residents who live in the area and who use the parks facilities.
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*NESTA is short for the National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts. It has apparently obtained access to National Lottery funding. It is viewed with suspicion by some residents who see it as a cover for the advance of the techno bureaucrat movement. Senior Council managers are understood to be involved with the organisation.