A consultation on the future of Greenwich Council’s adventure playcentres has been delayed — after promises that it would begin in the summer.
The council approved plans in February to review the future of the five centres, which include activities such as ropeswings, zipwires and table tennis. It had hoped to save £400,000 from the centres this year alone, and £2.2 million over the next four years.
The council said these savings would present “an opportunity to invest in some of the sites, or in other facilities in close proximity, to provide an up-to-date and more accessible offer, with fewer limitations”.
David Monteith, who has been campaigning to keep the Plumstead centre, asked councillors if closure was a foregone conclusion.
He said: “Can the council just please do us the courtesy of being transparent as to what transforming youth play actually means to you and what it practically wants to achieve?”
The council’s cabinet member for equality, culture and communities, Sandra Bauer, said: “We absolutely take this seriously. To be transparent I think you need to see the consultation and as you know, it’s not out there yet. We have committed ourselves to have got that out there by the end of the year. We do commit to being completely transparent.”
Bauer said a number of internal meetings across the council had slowed down the process of launching the consultation, and that a final decision on the centres’ future would not be made until next year.
Independent councillors Majella Anning and Ann-Marie Cousins proposed a motion that called upon the council to commit itself to retaining all five centres – Meridian in west Greenwich, Coldharbour in Mottingham, Glyndon, Plumstead and Woolwich – together with their staff.
Anning, who represents Creekside ward, where the Meridian centre is, said that Anthony Okereke, the council leader, had told her some months ago that the council planned to close all the centres.
She said: “Shutting adventure playcentres is a false economy. It looks good on paper to see how you can save the money, but what does it take away from children’s lives?
“Maintaining a safe and healthy environment for children is one of the most important jobs a council can do. This is why we are moving this motion, because we want certainty, the residents want certainty, and what we should be doing is making a retention of these valuable assets our starting point, and then we work out how we can make up the shortfall to keep them going.”
Cousins read out concerns shared to her by Plumstead residents, including the potential for an increase in youth crime and antisocial behaviour.
She said: “Residents feel that clarity and communication are sorely lacking, and repeated questions have been avoided and deflected. Whether intentional or not, it leaves residents feeling as if the council considers them to be stupid.”
Labour put forward an amendment to the independents’ motion, saying that the council needed to set a “realistic budget” and that the consultation would allow it to “listen to parents, children who are the users, and staff to align play for different age groups across the borough and to invest in better, more inclusive and more widely accessible equipment in the right places”.
Adel Khaireh, the council’s cabinet member for children and young people, said: “I’m a youth practitioner by trade and I have been for decades. I know the system inside out and I know there are organisations out there that will step forward and say ‘Let us help the council in delivering a youth service that’s fit for the 21st century’.
“We don’t know what’s going to come out from the consultation, that’s why we’re going out for a consultation. What comes out of there is going to shape it up. You can shake your head as much as you like, but we are going to listen to young people and put their views at the heart of what we do.”
Labour’s Calum O’Byrne Mulligan, who also represents Creekside ward, accused the independents of “fearmongering”.
He said he had met the manager of the Meridian centre and residents to discuss a £15,000 cash injection he had secured from housing developers.
He said: “I think that shows the difference between this Labour administration and the opposition here who simply want to play games and fearmonger with our young people.”
Cameron Blackshaw is the Local Democracy Reporter for Greenwich. The Greenwich Wire is a partner in the Local Democracy Reporting Service, which is a BBC-funded initiative to ensure councils are covered properly in local media.
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