By Carmelo Garcia – Local Democracy Reporter
Gloucester country park Robinswood Hill and Alney Island nature reserve could be offloaded as part of the City Council’s financial recovery plan.
Gloucester City Council leaders are applying to the Government for between £12.5m and £17.5m in exceptional support funding to avoid effectively becoming bankrupt.
Finance chiefs want to reduce costs at the authority and increase the income its commercial properties generate.
However, they are also looking at potentially selling or offloading some of their 270 properties.
One of the proposals could see sites such as Robinswood Hill and Alney Island be managed by Gloucestershire Wildlife instead of the council’s inhouse countryside unit.
Councillor John Jones (L, Kingsway) raised concerns about the plans to review the management of the countryside unit at last night’s special meeting on the council’s finances.
He said the community deserves continued access to nature and asked what the suggestions were and why should the council “pick on our natural heritage?”
“Robinswood Hill, 100 hectare country park on the south east of Gloucester rising to 198 metres,” he said.
“It provides a fantastic countryside experience within two miles of the city. Visitors enjoy a range of habitats from woodlands to meadows, orchards to ponds, brimming with wildlife, rich in history [with] Neolithihc flint quarries and historical wells.”
He also said the unit looks after the local nature reserve at Alney Island which has 80 hectares of wetland.
“It’s managed for public recreation and natural conservation,” he said. “For centuries the area was the lowest river crossing point to Wales.”
Council leader Jeremy Hilton (LD, Kingsholm and Wotton) said the council was not managing the sites very well.
The authority is in talks with Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust to see if they would take it on and improve the service provided.
“Most of us aren’t farmers,” he said. “Let the experts look after Robinswood Hill, let them look after Alney Island if that is the way we go forward.”