UNDER-threat play areas across Wyre Forest could be saved after a probe showed parents were unhappy with plans to ditch neighbourhood sites.

Wyre Forest District Council had been planning to close all of the smaller areas and pump money into four "super sites" at the best used play areas in Brinton Park and Springfield Park, Kidderminster, Stourport Riverside and Northwood Lane, Bewdley.

But a review into the scheme, carried out following an outcry by councillors, has left the council with three options which will be discussed by the executive, a decision-making "cabinet" of councillors, next week.

The choices are: sticking with the original plan - developed before Health Concern took sole control of the council following May's elections; keeping six neighbourhood sites in addition to the four main ones; and keeping all of them.

Kidderminster mayor Ken Stokes, the council's portfolio holder for community life, said: "We have got to reconsider the policy of the previous administration.

"We are concerned with people, not politics. We will attempt to give people what they want."

He said about 400 of 2,000 questionnaires sent out had been returned, while council staff had made an average of 28 visits to each of its sites to talk to users.

Some of these visits had shown certain sites were not worth keeping due to being underused - an example being a total of only four people being seen at one play area during the course of the visits.

Mr Stokes did not want to name the six sites identified for being kept in addition to the "super sites" in the second option, nor which option he thought would be favoured, as it will be discussed by the executive at its meeting next Thursday.

Mr Stokes said managing sites in partnership with other groups, such as housing companies, was another possibility to be discussed.

The Kidderminster sites under threat of the axe are Baxter Gardens, St George's Park, Jerusalem Walk, Broadwaters Park, East Street, Willowfield Drive, King George playing fields, Redstart Avenue, Swift Park Grove, Forester Way, Oriole Grove and Heronswood Road.

Sites at Pinta Drive and Golden Hind Drive in Stourport and Wyre Hill in Bewdley were also included in the review.