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London's Royal Parks, including Holland Park &
Kensington Gardens are losing out due to an anomoly which requires
the Royal Parks Agency to pay for the upkeep of roads in the parks.
Money which should properly be spent on gardening and sports facilities
is said to be being spent on fixing holes in the road.
Labour MP and former London mayoral candidate Frank
Dobson has called on the government to change the rules.
Mr Dobson, Labour's candidate for Mayor last year,
claimed the RPA had put aside £6million to maintain the Outer Circle
road in Regent's Park, while nearby sports pitches were being left
in a "deplorable state" due to a lack of funds.
He claimed the budget for the road was more than
the amount left over for improvements to the rest of the park. He
added: "This is an extraordinary state of affairs. The money in
the RPA's budget should be invested in the parks and not used to
bail out the road maintenance budget."
Today he fired off a letter of complaint to Culture
Secretary Tessa Jowell, who currently oversees the agency - next
year it will take on charitable status and move a step closer to
independence from the Government.
Officials at the agency said a lack of Government
funding had left a huge backlog of maintenance. The body receives
£22million a year from the taxpayer, but it estimates it would need
£120 million to carry out all the works it has planned.
A spokesman said: "We have a funding dilemma. We
are struggling to find resources to cover the infrastructure on
top of all our other projects for sport, education and the environment."
Control over the roads which run through the parks was transferred
during the Eighties from the Crown Estates Paving Commission to
the RPA, but RPA sources say no extra money was ever made available.
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