Southport MP Damien Moore urges council to reopen playgrounds for families

As the school Summer holidays begin, MP Damien Moore is urging Sefton Council to reopen playgrounds for local families to use.

The MP wants the local authority to open up the facilities in many of its main sites in Southport and elsewhere in the borough.

Play areas have already been reopened by neighbouring South Ribble Council, whose areas include Banks, Hesketh Bank and Tarleton, and Mr Moore says that residents in Southport should be able to use the facilities here as well.

He said: “Families and their children should be able to use playgrounds in Southport.

“Many children have spent too much time indoors over the last few months during the Coronavirus lockdown. Now as the Summer holidays start they should be able to make the most of the warmer weather and get outdoors and play.

“It is great for their physical wellbeing and important for their mental wellbeing too.

“Councils across the UK have been reopening their play areas, including South Ribble Council.

“It is a nonsense to see that children who live in the likes of Crossens and Churchtown will not be able to enjoy themselves in their local play areas but children just a few hundreds yards away in Banks will be able to access their playgrounds and slides near to them.

“Despite South Ribble’s success in reopening play equipment for the children in their borough, Sefton Council claim they have too many areas to manage.

“If that really is an issue then they could still manage to reopen play equipment in their 28 main sites, such as Botanic Gardens, Hesketh Park and Kings Gardens, without having to reopen equipment in its 140 or so district or neighbourhood parks, although this is still something South Ribble appears to have done without difficulty.

“Our children should be going to playgrounds. Their parents and guardians can help them to use their common sense and judgement to help keep them safe, such as carrying hand sanitisers with them.

“We need to give them back some sense of life getting back to normal.”