Council u-turn sees Yarm get its new play area after all

A rare U-turn by Stockton Council means that a new play area will be built at Leven Park in Yarm, just days after it was announced that the plans would have to be shelved.

For the past three years, local councillors have been working on plans that would see a new play area - the first, in fact - delivered on the east side of Yarm.

Although the funding has been in place from the outset, the scheme has been beset by a number of delays following consultations held with residents which saw a number of revisions made to the plans (most controversially, the addition of CCTV to allay residents' fears of the area attracting anti-social behavior).

However, at a meeting last week attended by myself and Councillor Sherris, officers from Stockton Council made it clear that they were no longer in a position to pay for the ongoing maintenance of the park and, unless another soure of funding could be found, the plans would have to be scrapped.

It goes without saying that when the outcome of the discussions were detailed at that evening's meeting of Yarm Town Council, the atmosphere was less than jovial.

A combination of further pressure from councillors as well as from dismayed residents led to a further meeting arranged for Tuesday evening, once again attended by myself and Councillor Sherris.

After much negotiation, Stockton Council agreed to reverse their position and to pay for all of the play area's maintenance and CCTV monitoring, everything except for the regular cleaning of the area which is to be paid for from local councillors' ward budget for, at least, the next three years.

It's mildly amusing to see all and sundry attempting to take the credit for securing the u-turn, including the so-called Yarm Residents' Association, the content of their website ostensibly written by Walter Mitty (Thurber's fictional character oft thought of as the Mayor of fantasyland and described by American Heritage Dictionary as "an ordinary, often ineffectual person who indulges in fantastic daydreams of personal triumphs").

Nevertheless, it would be wrong for the credit for finally securing the play park to go to anybody other than Councillor Sherris, who has been the scheme's driving force since day one and continues to work hard with me in endeavouring to secure long-term funding for the area's maintenance.

It is hoped that the new park should be installed and ready to go before the schools break for summer, but I hope to have this confirmed in the next few days.