To think this park should be open later than 6:30 even if the local residents disagree?

[Johnlewisgaddis]

Context: We live in a town in the south of England. My daughter, who is almost 11, wants to have an outdoor picnic with 20 other kids for her birthday in a few weeks. We only have a tiny garden, so won’t be able to fit them all in. Therefore, we need to have said picnic in a local park.

There’s a very big park in town, but that’s not very nice in the evenings because lots of local teenagers congregate there and smoke cigarettes/weed.
I therefore thought we could have it in a lovely little park in a different part of the town. This park is on a relatively new housing development - the developers acquired some land that used to be the humongous garden of a big old house, and have turned it into about 30 houses, 20 or so flats and a park. All the flats and several of the houses look out onto the park, but the people who live there don’t have any legal rights/ownership over the park.

I assumed the park was open all the time, like the big park, but when I went this afternoon to scout out a nice picnic location, we saw a sign at the entrance that said the park closes at 6:30. This is really disappointing as we were hoping to have an evening picnic, staying until around 8/9, when the temperature is a bit cooler, and maybe get a few disposable barbecues. I called up the council to ask why the park closes so early, especially in summer, and they said that it used to be open until 9 but the residents on the housing development complained about noise from people using the park and eventually the council agreed to close it at 6:30.

AIBU to think this is really unfair? Why would you buy a flat overlooking a park if you didn’t like the sound of children playing? It’s such a lovely park and I think it’s really sad that a few people can prevent everyone else enjoying the park on summer evenings.

YABVU, you don't live by this park and yet you are prepared to disturb the local residents by wanting to hold a picnic there.

Either invite less people and have it in your garden or find a picnic place (the forestry commission have them) and hold the picnic there.

Depends whereabouts in the south but what about a beach or country park instead? Lots of village halls have gardens and you can BBQ too.

There are 2 different issues here, and I think conflating them has led to OP getting a bit of a hard time.

OP is not asking them to open the park especially for her. She was asking about closing times in general. The two different issues are :

1. Is it reasonable for the park to close at 6.30pm in summer? No, it's not. We have a childhood obesity crisis and it is ludicrous that a park would shut this early rather than allowing people to use it. The park should be open in daylight hours.

1. Is OP being unreasonable for wanting to have a kids' party in a park until 9pm?

Depends if the park is big enough for her to do so without taking the whole place over & being right next to people's back doors.

If this is a public park, it's presumably paid for by local council tax payers, rather than being a shared garden just for residents of the new estate. Some London garden squares are only for the properties around the square and those residents hold keys. This doesn't sound like one of those.

Personally, OP, I'd go to the big park anyway. The weed-smoking teens are not going to bother your nippers when parents are around too. They'll be too busy trying to snog each other to worry about a bunch of 11 year-olds.

Ps birthday parties are common in the parks near me (London) - not that late, though, and no nice park will let you have disposable BBQs because it trashes free grass.

What's wrong is that the local park has been spoiled. They could prevent that by closing it at 6:30

6:30 is a bit early but if its going to close in the evening staff are needed to lock up. Parks and open spaces here are either open all night or locked by early evening.

OP yabu
Is this a reverse?

A pp says she thinks issues have been conflated. I didn't get that impression at all. I think the op just thinks the park should be open later. Agree that sadly, the earlier closing time is probably what makes it nice in the daytime.

Also notice OP says it's a lovely "little" park. Taking a party to little park is exactly how things get unpleasant. The big park is the place for that but they may not allow barbecues, sensibly.