Forums Forums Local News Wirral parks may be run by private firm

WIRRAL’S parks, countryside and open spaces could be turned over to a private company to manage under cost-cutting plans being considered by the council.

An asset review has been under way within the authority in recent months assessing all areas of outside space – along with Landican crematorium, golf courses, allotments and sports facilities – which could be included in the proposals.

Cabinet member for culture Cllr Bob Moon said the aim was to improve maintenance standards, gain a closer working relationship with park users and community groups and provide improved facilities.

The council also wants to see the plans result in improved security in parks, better marketing of the facilities and better value for money

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/live...-be-run-by-private-firm-100252-24804278/

This has been on the cards for ages and i think that it will happen. All of liverpool's open spaces etc are run by a private firm now, it's just a matter of when this will happen

well i hope they do a better job than the council have.

yeah but if they get the golf courses does this mean price increase???

Does this mean the end of free parks? if so isnt their a legal argument? I mean the parks belong to the people.
Same with the other services will we be held to randsom?
after all private companies are going to want to see a return on their funding.
katrina

Cost-cutting. Yeah, like sending all the dolites out on schemes run by 3rd party companies "saves money" - feck off, it costs them 8 times as much as it does to run the same scheme under the Job Centre with Job Centre staff. The same with hospitals, in fact everything that gets contracted out to private companies ends up costing stupid money within a couple of years. As always, a lot of very rich companies, making a lot of money, because of the governments promotion of using private companies for everything - our schools and hospitals (and even prisons) are the most expensive in the world, not because they are the best, far from it, but because the new ones are all in the hands of private companies.

Agree with Matt
Anything that goes private has got to receive a profit or they wouldn't do it
How do you make a profit
by price increases where possible

Maybe an even better way to cut costs, would be to use all the local long-term dolites for any and all required labour in maintaining the parks and open spaces, or face losing all their benefits for good??

Where does all this money go when things are sold off? It doesn't go back into the coffers, because they keep claiming they have no money. I'm fairly happy for the council to run the parks as they only have to cut the grass, so they can't really mess it up. It doesn't seem right to have someone else own it, when we were originally paying for it, one thing the council shouldn't sell off is the parks ffs.

I don't think it's a case of selling off parks and such but of paying the private company to look after them
Poss somebody has their snout in the trough

They can't sell off the parks or Bidston hill,they can get contractors in,just like the bins etc, to do the work and get rid of their own staff to these contractors,no staff, no illness,no pensions to pay,they offload them from their accounts and pay a different way which makes the accounts look good.

the firm that gets the contract will have to pay all those things unless it goes through job agencies and only hire workers as and when required
eg once every couple of months for grass cutting and such

Maybe we will have a bunch of Poles or similar looking after our parks

The price's of golf course's shouldn't change and most of the council staff will be "2p" over. I think the council should run it like liverpool do, by having a joint venture ie "Glendale liverpool" this means that Glendale liverpool is a no-profit making company, meaning more money in the long run is being put back into the parks

2p