While canvassing it has been brought to my attention that the park at the end of Halsall Lane is in a dreadful state. It looks like the Council has just “given up” on the park. The playground is sparse – with just a climbing frame and a small plastic rocking horse. When I visited the other day the climbing frame looked like it hadn’t been maintained in years – it was filthy, covered with grafitti and had litter and debris lying around. Bins had been burned out by vandals and left by the council. The play area is a mess.

The Conservative District Council have a policy of ignoring small playgrounds like this and instead want us to go to larger playgrounds. Halsall Lane Park suffers because the Council expects children to walk to Coronation Park, crossing the A59 in the process. This is inherently unfair because we shouldn’t expect parents of young children in the areas around Cottage Lane, Tennyson Drive or Redgate to send toddlers and small children to a playground half a mile away. Sadly, this is the policy that we have to work with at the moment.

In other parts of West Lancashire, small playgrounds like this would normally be adopted by the local Parish Council. In Up Holland, for example, there are four small parks around the village which have been maintained by the parish for decades. In Ormskirk we don’t have a Parish or Town council so we have to rely on the District Council.

There have been some improvements. Local activists including the local PC have had the very overgrown bushes cut back, primarily to reduce hiding-places for anti-social behaviour, but it helps make the park a little better.

There is talk that a “friends of Halsall Park” group could be set up, which might be the only way forward in the short term. However, that group will still have to raise funds to improve the state of the park and the responsibility for that ultimately lies with the Council. I will be writing to the District Council to find out what their plans are for the park and will report back presently.