I WOULD like to comment on the handling of the Pennington Park café by corporate contacts and assets of Wigan Council and its resulting closure.
The council has reportedly spent £6 million-plus on Mesnes Park and £6 million-plus on Haigh Hall in Wigan.
It has reportedly spent £10 million on Wigan Town Hall to turn it into a wedding venue and another £10 million to make it eco-friendly.
Both are examples of vast amounts of our money lavished on Wigan enterprises.
Turning to Leigh, you had a friendly café run by Friends of Pennington Hall Park (FoPHP) on behalf of the council.
I do not know any of the individuals personally but I found them hard working, industrious and inventive of ideas and suggestions for use of the park.
They undertook lots of duties completely buckshee and also provided a free caretaker role as most of them live near the park.
We then had the intervention of the corporate contacts and assets and have been left with a café that was used by many vandalised and seemingly shut down for good.
Basically we have a council that can run Haigh Hall and spend vast amounts of money but can’t effectively run an enterprise like a park café in Leigh.
Why do we pay the same for less on this side of the divide? We all pay the same community charge.
Atherton and Tyldesley are left as ghost towns, and with the way the park café has been handled I suspect Leigh will follow suite pretty soon.
So much for the so-called Deal!
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