rumbling at the Country Park

Written: 16/02/06

We live in interesting times with our Country Park after SCDC's council tax capping meant that they were looking to make big cuts in spending at the Country Park. I've been fairly heavily involved as I'm the parish council's rep on the SCDC advisory committee for the park.

Initially they were looking quite actively at outsourcing management of the park and at early meetings that was certainly the plan being discussed with a pack allegedly being put together for bidders by December 2005. However two things became clear as time went on. Firstly that the obvious bidders SCDC had in mind weren't that keen unless it came with a large dowry. Secondly a new bidder had popped up: Cambridge Mencap. They currently run the cafe at the Visitor Centre and could see possibilities with taking on management of the park. They ran with it very actively, employing someone specially to research it and even came to parish council and made a presentation.

The reaction of SCDC was very odd. SCDC is effectively represented in this context by two people: Simon McIntosh, the officer responsible for the park, and Cllr Deb Roberts, the portfolio holder.

Simon seemed (very properly) neutral on the issue but I got the distinct impression from the reaction of Deb Roberts that she wasn't at all happy with Cambridge Mencap trying to bid and there was a distinct change of direction with the bid pack never going out and a decision being made to keep management in house and to kick out Cambridge Mencap from the cafe facility. Why this should be I'm unclear, but it's lead to her making some rather ill advised remarks at advisory group meetings, at the public meeting we had a few weeks ago and most recently at the SCDC cabinet meeting last Thursday (and on radio and TV that same day).

Whether she was being poorly briefed or whether it's more personal I don't know but the reaction from Garry Simcox, Chief Executive of Cambridge Mencap has been this document (Adobe/PDF, 85KB) which he's circulated to interested parties, including Cambridge Evening News today.
 

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