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Bristol is to follow-up a controversial charge for all ‘Parkrun’ participants with a series of further ‘paid for’ features in the city’s parks and playgrounds.
The council has revealed plans to install coin-operated swings, a premium toll slide, and a roundabout for exclusive use of members of a new subscription scheme.
Councillors have claimed that the charges are necessary to properly maintain the park despite the fact that every other council in the country manages to maintain their parks without excess fees.
“Well, perhaps they’re just not maintaining their parks as well as we maintain ours,” said Simon Williams, a local councillor.
“Swings don’t just look after themselves you know, someone has to come in and give them a cursory wipe every now and again.
“Unless it rains, in which case that normally sorts it out.
“But the fact remains that someone has to pay for that cursory wipe, and we don’t have an awful lot of money left over after we’ve paid for our meetings to come up with bone-headed plans to charge people for the use of the park.”
It is understood that the council have further plans to charge corkage to the old men who drink cider on the benches, to place landmines under the football pitch and charge a fee to disarm them, and to introduce a new pay-to-snog-in-the-bushes scheme for teenagers.
