Liberal Democrats have criticised red tape at Labour-run Redcar & Cleveland Council today after the Friends of Zetland Park were forced to cancel their popular family fun day.
The Fun Day has been running for over 10 years and provides excellent free family entertainment. Over 4000 people attended last year and the event has raised over £100,000 for the park over the last ten years.
But this year the hard-working volunteers on the organising committee say that Council red tape and obstruction has forced them to abandon this year’s plans.
The group started planning the event in October 2013. But after four months of working to comply with more and more ridiculous and poorly thought out conditions from five different Council teams, they decided enough was enough.
Zetland ward Lib Dem Councillor Ron Harrison yesterday quizzed the Labour Cabinet Member responsible about why the Council is being so obstructive. She replied that she thought it was a shame that the event had been cancelled, but did not offer to simplify the system.
“Shaping Our Future” is supposed to be a Council initiative to enable community groups to organise things for themselves, but it appears to be failing.
Cllr Ron Harrison said:
"This is a huge blow to Redcar and the borough as a whole. The community feels let down and unsupported by the Labour Council.
“The Council really needs to get to grips with this before the scenario is repeated and it destroys the goodwill of more of our hard-working, voluntary groups."
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