IN RESPONSE to Shaun Faulkner's reply (dated April 9) to our original letters, I welcome much that Shaun, Head of Brent Council's Parks Department, says regarding the council's increased investment in sports facilities in the borough, which is most welcome and long overdue.

However, despite what Mr Faulkner says, the pitches at Wembley Park Sports Ground were not "ready to be used" as of Sunday, March 22. The grass was visibly overgrown and rubbish was strewn all over the site. Last Wednesday (April 8), 10 people were employed to clear up the site, presumably ahead of a forthcoming meeting between the Ark School and Brent Council's planning department. The grass at the sports ground has been cut three times in the past week (as of Tuesday, April 14).

As per the planning agreement for the reception school granted planning permission last June, the sports ground is meant to be available for use, yet clearly is hasn't been and is only now so for largely cosmetic purposes (it remains unavailable to me). It will of course again be closed if major building work starts if the proposed 1,600 pupil school gets planning permission, despite the major detrimental impact it will have on traffic flow in Forty Avenue. Mr Faulkner did indeed offer me use of John Billham.

However, the changing rooms on that public sports ground - which is not floodlit - have never been made available to me after 6pm.

Local MP Barry Gardner negotiated to reopen Wembley Park Sports Ground for my long-established training sessions on the site, and since October last year has been trying to organise a meeting between himself, Mr Faulkner and me, to no avail.

In Mr Faulkner's reply, he has no answer to my assertion that kids are being priced out of football facilities in Brent. He is hiding behind council rhetoric by claiming sports facilities are already heavily subsidised.

An appropriate charge is one that is affordable to a child in relation to that kid's ability to pay. There is a social value inherent in providing decent affordable sports facilities, which local taxpayers view as a necessary public expense. It is a logic recently embraced by Harrow Council, which has offered free swimming to under-16s in the borough.

PETER MORING

Elliot Close Oakington Avenue

Wembley Middx