FRUSTRATED that park gates have been locked shut, a Charvil man is calling for the borough council to re-open the green spaces for exercise.
Matt Jameson said the council is failing to comply with instructions about opening parks for the purpose of exercise, after seeing that access to green spaces have been locked.
“The parkland behind Charvil village hall is both a green area for walking around, as well as having a childrens play area,” said Mr Jameson. “I’ve lived here since 1992 and it’s always been a nice open park for local residents. They used to hold the annual village fete there too.
“The childrens play area is taped off — I have no argument with that, but the main access is padlocked and secondary bolted preventing anyone being able to enter and walk around in the park land.
“Obviously we don’t want children playing on stuff, that’s common sense. And people around here are pretty sensible.
“But there are lots of elderly people that live around here, and they’ve been shut out of the park. It doesn’t make sense, it’s just stupid.
“There’s plenty of space for people to use the grounds without going near to one another.”
Although the access to the field has been blocked, Mr Jameson explained that council maintenance teams are continuing to look after the site.
“They’re still going in on Fridays and cutting the grass — and then re-locking the gates after.
“There was a Wokingham white van up here on Wednesday, April 22 looking at the gates, but clearly not complying with Government instruction to re-open.”
He added: “We have been asked to pay a considerable increase in rates for Charvil this year, and one of the few facilities here is being blocked.
“As someone who is in my 70s — a local walk not up and down hills is what I would wish to do as part of daily exercise, and the park area would work well for that.
“If older kids decide to climb over the iron fencing and mess about in the park they will — padlocks will not bar them. But if the local parks are reopened it will stop folk driving off to further distant places for exercise.”
Mr Jameson is now calling for access to parkland across the borough to be re-opened.
“There’s been a very direct instruction from the Government about keeping parks open,” he said. “And Wokingham Borough Council are not following this.”
A spokesperson from Wokingham Borough Council said: “The parkland in Charvil was closed in error by contractor but we will reopen as soon as possible.”
