Renfrewshire Council Price Increases for Council Parks and Training Lets

Renfrewshire Council Price Increases for Council Parks and Training Lets

Renfrewshire Council has written to all customers to notify them of increased costs for hiring council facilities for training lets and pitch hires this takes effect from 1st April 2011.

This has a big impact on a number of organisations including St Peters Boys Club, which will also impact you as parents, as the weekly subscriptions will need to be increased to cover these costs.

We accept that Renfrewshire Council, like most councils is faced with some tough financial challenges over the next few years and needs to make some tough financial decisions to successfully meet these targets. We have outlined some of the price changes below to give you an indication of the increases:

Games Hall (2 hours) was 5.80 now 21.80 275\% increase
Midweek Astrograss, full park (1 hour) was 29.40 now 55.20 87\% increase
Midweek Astrograss, 3rd park (1 hour) was 12.60 now 23 82\% increase
Saturday Astrograss, 3rd park (1 hour) was 15.80 now 23 45\% increase
Saturday Grass 11-a-side park was 15.80 now 28.60 81\% increase

Renfrewshire Council has indicated that they have carried out extensive consultation with the community on budget priorities and found that there was public backing for increased charges if that meant essential services were protected. Speaking to a number of coaches and parents from within the Renfrewshire area, they are unaware of this consultation.

There is a country wide initiative, trying to encourage kids to participate in physical activity and promote healthy living. Inverclyde Council has an excellent initiative in place where they are working in partnership with local boys clubs, offering them free facilities on a rotational basis, for training lets and matches a number of these facilities are top of the range astrograss parks. This has seen an increase in the number of kids participating in sport, where as we are seeing too many kids dropping out as their parents are unable to pay the weekly subscriptions in the current financial climate.

We are asking for your support and would appreciate if you could complete the attached petition to oppose these price increases, please share with family and friends.

We plan to write to our local councillors, the Scottish Youth Football Association and to Renfrewshire Council in an attempt to get these prices reduced.