Park users have warned of the need to protect Hounslow 's open spaces in the face of a planned £2.3 million budget cut.

Hounslow Council says that is how much it needs to trim from its leisure and culture spending over the next four years due to "unprecedented" cuts in funding from central government.

The council's new head of parks and open spaces, Stefania Horne, met representatives of friends groups from parks across the borough to discuss how they could help it achieve that goal.

Karen Liebreich, of Chiswick, who attended the meeting, said she was pleased the council had "renewed dialogue" with friends groups, which she claimed had been lacking for "several years".

"The strongest message to emerge unanimously from the meeting was that friends groups felt that all parks and open space were considered valuable and must not be sold off or built over," she added.

Ms Liebreich said money-saving measures suggested at the meeting included planting more sustainably to reduce maintenance costs and letting friends groups do more to help with the management of parks.

"Tough decisions"

The council has said it must find at least £70 million of savings over the next four years to balance its books, and all departments are facing cuts.

A public consultation on its draft leisure and culture strategy closed last month, and a final report is due to go before councillors in February.

The draft strategy sought the public's views on modernising Hounslow's library services and enhancing its parks and open spaces on a limited budget.

It said there were no plans to close any community facilities like libraries or public halls at the moment but no options were being ruled out.

Councillor Ed Mayne (photo by Fergus Burnett (fergusburnett.com)

Councillor Ed Mayne, cabinet member for public health and leisure, said the council, like most other local authorities, faces some "incredibly tough decisions" about services it can no longer afford to deliver.

"We therefore have to prioritise and re-design our leisure and culture services and we have outlined some ways we might do this in our Draft Leisure and Culture Strategy," he said.

"We've been talking with residents about the draft strategy and we're grateful to everyone who has given us their views on where we should prioritise reducing resource and also where we have opportunities to improve services within the reduced budgets.

"Residents' views will be used to help draw up a list of proposals to make savings and improve services, and these will be presented to Borough Council in February for consideration."