I WOULD like to comment about the decision of Great Sankey Parish Council to restrict parking at the Tim Parry Centre. The reason cannot be the safety of children in the playground because there are no children on wet Friday evenings. There are, from time to time, a group of youths hanging around smoking, dropping litter, abusing the caretaker and generally acting in an intimidating manner but no children. There have never been any accidents as far as I know.

When I pointed this out I was given other reasons such as:

The insurance at the centre does not cover parked vehicles

There has been drug dealing in the playground

The caretaker has had to stop youths using the playground as a race track.

The first one is obviously spurious in that if the cars with disabled stickers are insured then so is everyone else, if indeed insurance is required. Cars park adjacent to the building on the other side of the playground - are they not insured? The other reasons are for the police to put stop to, not reasons for restricting access by law-abiding rate payers to the centre.

I think the parish council has made a bad decision - probably for what they thought good reason - but it appears they are determined to stick to it through thick and thin.

CLIVE STANNARD

Cronulla Drive

Great Sankey

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