Lib Dems demand Labour apologise over Newcastle parks 'failure' as charity set to be scrapped
by Daniel Holland · ChronicleLiveLiberal Democrats in Newcastle have demanded that council bosses apologise for what the party has labelled a “humiliating U-turn” on the city’s parks.
Newcastle City Council’s Labour-run administration is poised to pull the plug next week on an experiment which saw 33 Tyneside parks and more than 60 allotments put into the hands of a charity less than six years ago. It was hoped that Urban Green Newcastle (UGN) would save the city more than £110 million over the course of a 125-year lease deal, but the local authority is now set to bring control of its green spaces back in-house.
The decision, due to be ratified by the council’s cabinet next week, comes amid concerns over the charitable trust’s finances and a review which found “no evidence” that UGN would be able to stay afloat without “substantial financial support from the council for the foreseeable future”. Inflated costs, the impact of Covid-19, and council-imposed restrictions on staging large music festivals have all been cited as key factors in Urban Green’s downfall.
The Lib Dems were critical of the move to outsource the parks at the time and have now raised concerns about how the council, which is set to announce a new round of budget cuts in the coming weeks, will be able to reabsorb the service. At the time of handover to Urban Green, the council had slashed its annual parks budget from £2.58 million in 2010/11 to less than £1 million – but now says that a minimum of £1.5 million will be needed each year just to keep them from deteriorating.
Colin Ferguson, the city’s Lib Dem opposition leader, said: “While it looks like the Labour cabinet will now be forced to recognise reality and take control of the city’s parks back from Urban Green, this does not absolve them from apologising to the residents of Newcastle for an experiment that we warned them against at the time. Labour insisted on setting up Urban Green, and then failed to put in place measures to ensure that Urban Green was spending funds transferred to them by the City and to monitor how Urban Green was living up to their original remit.
“If the Cabinet had done their job, they would have ensured accountability for the funds being transferred, they would have known that Urban Green was in difficulty earlier and acted sooner. They cannot simply blame COVID for this fiasco: while it had an impact, it was not the sole or main cause of the current situation. Now council tax payers will see higher bills or reduced services as a direct result of this failure.”
Urban Green was supposed to become self-sustaining within a decade of its launch in 2019, after an initial £7.7 million of financial support from the council. But it has needed an extra £1 million of help this year and forecast a £6.7 million deficit up to 2029.
UGN’s assets and around 40 staff are now expected to transfer to the council by the end of January. Labour said the original transfer of the parks was “carefully considered”, believing at the time that a charity would be able to generate more income and access more grant funding to protect their future.
Alex Hay, the deputy leader of the council, added: “Since 2019 both elected members and officers have served on the Urban Green Newcastle board, while there has been an ongoing dialogue between the city council and Urban Green Newcastle throughout the last five years. It is misleading to suggest that city council management of parks and allotments over the last five years would have led to more investment, more income generation and thriving green spaces. We simply didn’t have the funding to deliver that, and a global pandemic that had a devastating impact on communities and businesses across the city cannot be ignored – even if the opposition wants to.
“That means we are in a different place now than in 2019. It is a complete falsehood to suggest bringing management in house would be the reason behind any council tax increase and the investment required moving forward is no different in council control as it would be under Urban Green. There has also been no suggestion from the opposition as to how they would fund the type of investment they are talking about. Would they slash funding for vulnerable adults, take away welfare support for families or reduce funding to help maintain our highways?
“We want to ensure our residents can take pride in our city’s parks and allotments. They are some of our most cherished assets and we have a public duty to ensure they are safe, accessible and can provide green spaces that will play a leading role in the health and wellbeing of our city’s residents. We look forward to working with the opposition to deliver that vision.”
Mark Mitchell, a Lib Dem councillor in West Fenham, added: “Council tax payers have already been asking why we gave an extra £1 million to Urban Green earlier in the year. Now they are asking who is going to pay the costs of bringing the parks and allotments back into the council and the additional running costs that must now be paid.
“Labour failed in its most basic task: to ensure that council tax payers’ money was being well-spent. This was a political decision to adopt a ‘hands off’ approach and now we are all going to pay the cost.”
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