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Shameful Gunnersbury Park CIC

Surely Ealing and Hounslow Councils need to call an enquiry into just how Gunnersbury Park is being run.Clearly, it is far from interested in being a community organisation but obsessed with their own agenda and rather deluded.The way in which the Bowls club, a long established club accessible for all, at costs that local people can afford, self financing, run and maintained fully by members for the past 25 years as a result of the complete failure of Ealing and Hounslow to maintain this parks facilities for near 50 years is nasty, ageist and wholly conceited.The silence from Ealing Councillors is yet again, underlining how ageist and removed they are from local community.  Hounslow councillors fare little better but at least have become aware that something fishy is going on with this Organisation.Far too many cosy arrangements to be healthy.I understand that somehow, this Organisation is exempt from any form of open access from Freedom of Information to public accountability. And yet they are funded by grants, awards and ultimately source from taxpayers and public money. None of which has found it's way to the Bowls club or other basic aspects of this park.  But above average salaries for those within the CiC and it's associates remain.Truly appalling. Local people, whether they be interested in Bowls or not, or how a public park with public amenities is being turned into a commercialised profit centre at the expense of basic amenities affordable and accessible for all ought to be asking their elected representatives to ask questions.Bowls is a multicultural genteel sport played all over the world. It is reviving and can be played from a young age right through to old age. Not many Sports than can accommodate that.When it's gone it's gone. A proper sports facility, a public amenity replaced by a Fast food outlet and a sideshow crazy golf. That's not a sport or a public amenity. It is a profit business.Did this not happen with Walpole Park and a Coffee Hut? That was another case of bullying and closed door dealing. And it went wrong. Very Wrong.Especially now that we are being told by authorities to walk, cycle and stay local.

Raymond Havelock ● 1137d8 Comments