ONCE a misleading and inaccurate story gets into the public domain it is hard to correct.

There is no "Cripplegate Crisis" nor does the council plan to concrete over the park (Seven Days with Phillpott, Saturday, February 12).

The council has shown good faith already by refurbishing the fountain, knocking down and incorporating 1-3 Hylton Road into the park (plus 590 sq metres), incorporating the old staff car park into the park (plus 800 sq metres).

The Tybridge parking extension is 2,080 sq metres. The difference means 1.6 per cent of the park is reduced.

But the council wants to remove the Hylton Road garage with its garish, ugly front and horrendously rusty corrugated iron rear.

This eyesore would be replaced with a completely green vista and actually make the park bigger by 4 per cent.

I personally opposed Labour's plans to sell off Newtown Green, allow offices on green fields, Whittington Road and covering seven acres of the park with a supermarket.

I was secretary of the Friends of Ronkswood Field, Newtown Green, for several years. I want to see our green open spaces remain untouched.

Cripplegate is a man-made urban park. The council intends to enhance it accordingly to the Plinkie Landscape proposals, which were in a public exhibition at the Guildhall and St John's Sports Centre and reported extensively in the Evening News.

But it is useless for us to do a one-off improvement and then not keep it up.

The Tybridge parking will bring in £32,000 a year to continue improved maintenance of Worcester parks.

Our other parks will depend on this too in the long term. The money will be ring fenced only for the parks. We hope to morally bind future councils not to reduce parks maintenance again.

There is no Cripplegate Crisis; only a plan that will help restore all of Worcester's parks to their glory day and keep them there - and to make Cripplegate greener, bigger and safer.

COUNCILLOR FRANCIS LANKESTER,

Cathedral Ward, Worcester.