Swings and roundabouts
Playing politics with our play areas
The future of children’s play areas in working class parts of Oxford is a long-running saga that most residents will be familiar with.
Proposals to save money by closing 16 play areas across the city, several of which are in Blackbird Leys, were floated last year by the ruling Lib Dem city council administration.
The IWCA has opposed this from the start. Labour too has been very vocal in its opposition to the plans. Unlike the IWCA, however, Labour's protests are intended to divert attention from the fact that it was the previous Labour administration that ran the play areas into the ground and then commissioned a review that proposed their closure.
In fact it is this very review that led to the current proposals, now eagerly being implemented by the Lib Dems.
As the Oxford City Council review explains, ‘Since the early 1990s, expenditure on Oxford’s play areas has been reduced year on year … and as a result (their) condition has deteriorated.’ This was after Labour had been running the council for 20 years.
For anyone wondering why it now refuses to take control of the city council when it has more representatives than anyone else, the reason is clear: Labour needs someone else to blame for its years of council mismanagement.
Leys Independent, issue 37, October 2007
| 
