Underfunded councils prepared to sell off parks
A BBC investigation has found that over half of councils in the North West of England are considering selling parks or finding other organisations to maintain them within the next three years.
Aiming to counterbalance government budget cuts, the BBC Inside Out North West investigation revealed that 60 per cent of local authorities have had their parks budgets cut since 2015, with 57 per cent considering selling or handing over responsibility for them and 31 per cent having already done so.
An example highlighted by the BBC is Knowsley Borough Metropolitan Council, which intends to sell 17 parks, representing 10 per cent of its parks, and use the money raised to protect its remaining 144. The authority claims that selling Brown's Field in Prescot to a housing developer would raise £5 million.
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