To think Middlesbrough should not lock the parks

[calllaaalllaaammma]

The Mayor of Middlesbrough has decided that the people of Middlesbrough can't be trusted not to congregate in parks and they remain locked.
I'm sad as my dad is on his own there, we can't visit and he used to get a lot of pleasure walking the central Middlesbrough park.
There's lots of terraced housing there with young families with no gardens.
I understand there is a small increased risk but think they could police it and the attitude of the Mayor is high handed and condescending.
Vote Yes, re-open it
No, Keep it locked

Everyone will just climb Roseberry Topping now surely. Perfect for social distancing!

Thing is IF people have been meeting in that park in groups etc what choice have they got.

Yes it’s sad for your dad but if people can’t be trusted (a lot can’t) then that’s the way it just be

I’m sure I read somewhere that the government said parks should remain open. Not the play areas but the parks themselves so people can exercise

I thought this idiocy only happened in London.

Kick up a stink on social media. Fucking outrageous.

Yanbu. No parks should be locked, which I thought was what the communities secretary promised in the briefing the other day.

Roseberry topping is such a cool name. Sounds like it should be on a crumble!

The government has specifically told local authorities and police forces not to close parks. I’d feel an email or phone call to the MP coming on.

It's really difficult and I can see both sides to the story.

Middlesbrough does have one of the highest rates of CV19 per head and this must be because people are not following the guidelines. It's very much a shame that the majority have to suffer for the minority but I suppose he has to try and be seen to be doing something!

Middlesbrough does have one of the highest rates of CV19 per head and this must be because people are not following the guidelines. It may be something to do with being one of the poorest and most overcrowded communities in the country. Not so much money to do a big supermarket shop so lots of small shopping trips etc. It's a lot easier to achieve social distancing if you're well-off.

Rosebery Topping is a proper bracing walk!

I live a few towns down from 'boro and our town council have also closed the local parks. Some have gates on the entrance to the park and the town council have put massive padlocks on the lot. I think this is the right decision, people will be tempted to go. The whole 'oh we aren't hurting anyone' blah blah blah. People having a picnic, kids kicking a ball about. All it takes is a few people and others will be thinking it's acceptable because they can see others doing it.

As far as the articles I've read say boro has been badly hit. It's about keeping people alive. If he wants a walk, surely he can still have a small trot round the block. It's not ideal but this is the situation we are facing. Also boro do still have green areas which won't have been closed due to not having fences etc. Places like Stewart's park will still be accessible, the area just outside the magistrates court is open, as will be the ground round the university.

Middlesbrough does have one of the highest rates of CV19 per head and this must be because people are not following the guidelines.

There are stacks of other possible reasons. Do you think the residents of Lombardy or New York are naughtier than everyone else??

Maybe people were congregating there but they aren't going to run along home if the parks are shut, they'll just congregate somewhere else. At least in the park a couple of cops could do the rounds and break up larger groups.

Yy Meredint.
We will probably discover other connections with poverty as time goes on such as more ill health and it being harder to stop everyone getting it in an overcrowded house. I think we should be wary off assuming many cases = bad behaviour.

I think I've also seen that Boro had one of the lowest rates of adherence to the lockdown guidelines, on a survey.
So maybe we cant be trusted - or we are more honest than the rest of the country, and answered about what we were actually doing rather than what we thought the answer should be?

Flynn Stewards park is closed. Thats the whole point of the thread. All the parks are shut.

Wasn't Roseberry Topping absolutely rammed just before the lockdown, with all the associated stop offs in the surrounding villages?

I think the park thing is a really complex behavioural issue as Middlesbrough was initially the place that had lowest compliance with the lockdown (I now think its second to Darlington). If you close the parks will people retreat into their homes where they are likely to be safer, or will people continue to flout the lockdown but instead be concentrated in the little terraced streets rather than in an open green space thereby increasing the public health risk?

I wouldn't want to be the person making that judgement call.

That's shite - my lovely council had shut all green spaces/ parks (I'm in NI) and they reopened them after the Communities Secretary's briefing. It has made such a difference to my mum this week. She's finding it very tough, we'd see them a few times a week normally. She went out yesterday for a walk in a space that had been reopened and it really helped her.

Oh this is such a shame. I personally don't think anywhere should lock parks because some people live in high rises, especially in Boro and it's just not normal to live like a shut-in for weeks and weeks on end. Parks are a good place to get some exercise and clear your mind, so no, I definitely don't think parks should be locked. People who are taking the piss should be moved on accordingly but it's so unfair to ruin it for others who are using it for the right intents and purposes.

They should open the parks and the police could actually do some old fashioned community policing rather than stopping shoppers going to B&Q on an industrial estate.

I am usually very supportive of the Mayor but he has pulled an absolute wrong one here.

He really has no idea, he initially said that one green space around a lake had to be shut. It has full open access with residential areas all around it. The green spaces like this, that can't be closed, are being engulfed and local residents are getting territorial over their spaces.

There are a section of residents not adhering, but I am not sure that closing parks is the way to deal with this.

Middlesbrough is covered by two MP's (con/lab) neither of them are happy.

Kitten - I meant the little one between linthorrpe road and parliament road, I always thought the big one was called something else 😂

Middlesbrough is covered by two MP's (con/lab) neither of them are happy

Hopefully between them they’ll convince him he’s acting against government policy and make him reopen. It’s so shortsighted.

The government said parks should remain open.
I understand that they would lock the play areas of the park and have police patrol the park to check social distancing etc.
It's the only green space my dad can access easily,

• it could only happen in the North East, this condescending attitude of the council towards its people.

I'm not in Middlesbrough but had to travel back to my home city (cast iron excuse!) and noticed immediately people aren't following the rules and the rates are far higher here consequently than where I was, my friends are in Middlesbrough and said nobody is following rules, teenage parties still happening etc. there rate is double here by population. There's lots of open space that isn't fenced in Middlesbrough though, so at least there's options (unlike bigger places)

Here in the south west they have just reopened our lovely botanical gardens, the parks have been open all the time though except the play areas. Think it's a shame about the park