Oct 08 - GSD Raises Questions About Commonwealth Park Design And Maintenance
The GSD Opposition has today raised questions about the design and maintenance of Commonwealth Park in light of the very poor condition in which the lawns have found themselves for some time.
The GSD notes that, for a few weeks, access to the lawns had been restricted, apparently in the hope that sand might turn to grass once more but it now appears as if the struggle to save the grass has been given up. It will be noted that the Chief Minister boasted in his budget address in 2013 about how the grass had been sourced from 'a plant nursery in the south of England,' grass which must have represented a significant part of the investment in the park.
A statement from the GSD said the multi-million pound park, as good as it looked when delivered, and despite the GSLP/Liberal Government's failure to deliver its manifesto commitment to provide two underground floors of parking beneath it, is now anything but green, despite the millions of pounds pumped into the GSLP/Liberals' signature manifesto commitment in 2011.
"It’s almost as if someone might have got the design or spec of the park terribly wrong. What was intended to be a lung for the city centre is no longer as green and grassy as it is sandy and, when the rains come, it will likely be reduced to little more than an expensive and rather ostentatious mud pit. It would appear that specifying grass from a plant nursery in the south of England, which can't have been cheap, may not have been the best idea for the climate in which the park was being created. Clearly, as with all the many other vanity projects of this Government (which claimed we were broke, but no one believes them anyway), no expense has been spared, even if the expensive option was in fact the wrong one. It’s a real shame given how popular the park is," explained a GSD spokesman.
The party questioned: "What does the Government plan to do now? How much is it going to cost us to repair it? Why is the grass green on neither side of the park? Has there been a failure by the contractors in the maintenance of the grounds? Was the grass simply not fit for purpose? Who is to blame and who will pay for its repair?"
The GSD calls on the Government to answer all these questions and to tell the people of Gibraltar how much it has cost the taxpayer to deliver and maintain the park so far and how much more money down the drain (literally) it will take to get the park looking as green as one might expect it to look.
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