It's all about parking

HAVING been told by Huntingdonshire District Council that the grassed surfaced area Football pitches were safe after local residents fought a rather lengthy campaign, we find councillors and planners are again about to break their word.

Malcolm Lyons, who wants to stand as a Tory candidate in East Ward in May, had the cheek to pop his electoral address through our letterbox (which could be classed as jumping the gun and already canvassing - is it legal?) with his photo in Riverside Park, stating that the pitches won't be turned into a car park area? If he stood here at the moment, he would be under water as the Great Ouse has flooded Riverside Park's banks.

They are offering to spend quite a large amount of taxpayers' money on concreting more areas over in the park starting at the Godmanchester bridge area by improving the mooring area for boats and barges.

They are proposing to concrete over a large area of the grassed football pitches to lay green plastic pitches for children to play on, evicting the senior players up to Kings Ripton, where you need a car to travel to and where it's not safe to cross the road. The new pitches can also be used for emergency parking. And at the far end of Riverside Park improvements are going to be made there.

A consultation period is taking place even though HDC agreed not to remove the grassed area pitches.

It's all about car parking, not improving the Riverside Park. With the new headquarters being built with taxpayers' money, HDC will, like HHP, be building new flats on its car park, so they need extra spaces in Riverside Park.

Because HHP built flats in its car park, at least 20 of their vehicles are parked up at Alconbury air base where the containers are stored near Cambridgeshire police dog training area. They also park in Riverside Park, as do Steve's Taxis and at the moment quite a few Town Hall workers.

ROBERT COSSEY-MOWLE

Hartford Road

Huntingdon