MY LIFE’S WORK AS PARK KEEPER DESTROYED BY HEARTLESS COUNCIL
FOR 32 years, award-winning gardener Peter Fawcett lovingly maintained the parks in his home town. Every day he would spruce up the gardens in Cleckheaton, West Yorkshire, keeping the colourful flowerbeds free of weeds and the shrubs looking shipshape for everyone to enjoy.
At night he would return home to his wife Aine, tired but swelling with pride at a job well done.
‘Gardening is my life and the parks were my life’s work,’ says Mr Fawcett. ‘But when I look at them now, I feel sick – it has all been destroyed.’
His heartbreak is clear to see as he shows us around Cleckheaton Memorial Park. Swingeing cuts by the local council have left the park and surrounding green spaces completely unrecognisable from the photographs Mr Fawcett proudly took when he retired in 2010.
The park is now a grim, unwelcoming place. Almost all of the pretty flowerbeds have been grassed over, and there are hardly any plants or shrubs to admire these days. Meanwhile, the pungent smell of a cannabis joint being shared by three youths sitting on one of the park benches only adds to the feeling of decline.
However, the worst sight of all for Mr Fawcett is that of the town’s First World War memorial – bedding plants have been ripped out and replaced with bark chippings. Mr Fawcett, a seven-time winner of the National Chrysanthemum Society championships, says: ‘That is a big insult to the soldiers who died. This year marks the centenary of the end of the First World War and it is the first time that the memorial has not been planted.
‘The gardener has been told to put wood chips down instead to stop the weeds coming up.
‘It’s a disgrace. When people come to pay their respects on Remembrance Sunday they always used to plant their little red crosses in the flowerbed but this year they will have to plant them in bark.’
All the more galling for Mr Fawcett is the fact that the memorial contains the names of his great uncles – Samuel Fawcett, who was killed at Ypres in 1917, aged 29, and Frank Brown, who was killed at the Somme in 1918, aged 21.
He says: ‘This year the council should be pulling out the stops to make it look extra special but they have done the opposite. I feel so sad.’
Kirklees Council has slashed its
parks and open spaces budget by £1.7million in the past six years. The Labour-run authority insists cuts had to be made because the Government slashed its funding.
However, the council intends to provide a £9million loan to developers building a four-star hotel and an indoor ski slope next to the football stadium of Premier League side Huddersfield Town.
Mr Fawcett says: ‘This council has the money for pet projects but not for folks to enjoy their parks.
‘What they are doing to the parks is a scandal. They don’t care – they can’t, otherwise why would they be doing this? They have got rid of 40 gardeners and closed five bowling greens in the last five years.’
Mr Fawcett has become a thorn in the side of Kirklees Council in recent years with his complaints about the shocking decline of his beloved parks.
He says: ‘No one in senior management at the council has a clue about horticulture. They don’t seem to know the difference between a dandelion and a daisy. But such a big difference can be made with so little money. Great parks lift the spirits and give people something to feel good about. They are vital for our health and our wellbeing. British gardeners and gardens used to be the envy of the world but no longer. Now we are in danger of losing vital skills.
‘It is disgusting that these days it is always about the bottom line. They are aiming for lower standards, not higher. For the trained gardeners who are left it’s exasperating to be told to pave or grass over flowerbeds. Morale is very low among the council’s gardeners but they dare not speak up because they will get sacked. I am speaking up and they can’t stop me.
‘The gardeners around here have been told to stop talking to me. They told my former colleagues that if they are seen talking to me they will face disciplinary action, which is ridiculous.’
Kirklees Council leader Shabir Pandor said: ‘In the case of Cleckheaton Memorial Park, we worked with local councillors and groups who wanted the flowers removed as they had died in the summer heat, spoiling the appearance of the memorial.
‘The loan for a hotel is a way that we can lend, at a commercial rate, to promote investment in the town and I am confident that the scheme will have a massive impact on tourism and leisure in our town.’