Playground work to be put right

The park at Low Ackworth has been heavily criticised by R-Ackworth, an online pressure group, and warned parents to be careful about allowing their youngsters to use the site.

A new timber climbing frame complete with ladder, nets, monkey bars, a fireman’s pole and wobbly bridge were recently built on the Station Road site.

But R-Ackworth claims a boundary wall on the verge of collapse had been ignored, along with a steel manhole protruding from the ground and a bag of possible asbestos that had been dumped there.

The manhole cover has since been tended to, and the bag removed.

Parish council chairman, Sarah Balfour said: “These issues had been raised to us but none of the complaints have come direct from parents.

“It’s not true that the parish council is not doing anything.

“We’ve had a supervisor out to inspect the boundary wall and it’s being dealt with, we’re looking at getting it pointed up.

“We’re also looking at getting secure fencing around the whole play area, although we can;t say when this will happen.”

Despite this, R-Ackworth’s John Hardmann insists more should have been done when the park was renovated.

He said: “The park is a danger, kids are very inquisitive and it will be too late if somebody gets seriously hurt.

“It’s only been done up recently, they’ve spent thousands on it but these problems should have been part of the renovation.

“All they have done is put the new equipment in there.”