SIR: On the 10th April this year North West Water formed a private limited company they chose to call the "Rivington Heritage Trust" to run, in the future, Lever Park and their ambitious £15 million proposed developments for the Park and the Rivington area. This Trust is to have the benefit, if approved, of a half dozen planning applications to be decided by the Chorley Borough Council in the next few days.

It is a good time to look at what sort of body this Trust is to see how the Park might be run and I am grateful to N W Water for supplying me with a copy of the 24 pages of incorporation documentation.

As recently as March the Trust was to be called the "North West Water Heritage Trust" and whilst the change of name suggests the Trust is limited to Rivington the documentation makes it clear that it is not, Rivington may well be its first heritage, but that may just be the first of many. The Board of Trustees is basically controlled by N W Water as they have given themselves the right to appoint 7 out of the 13 basic Trustees and thus the right to control the appointment of any co-opted other persons. I believe the running of the Park should be controlled by democratically elected persons as the use and enjoyment of the Park by the Liverpool Corporation, ACT 1902 was given to "the public for ever".

The money side suggests fundamental changes. The Trust is to rely heavily on income from a proposed Blue Planet Educational and Visitor Centre but this may or may not be a financial success. Whereas the Park has been maintained by statutory provision in the past at the expense of the Water Authority, it is proposed the Trust will do that on a self financing basis. Commercialisation becomes a real risk. More worrying still, money raised within Lever Park apparently can be used for Trust purposes outside it and even world-wide as arrangements with national authorities are specified.

A capability appears to be being put in place for a public park with these proposals, this Trust and the Lever Park Bill presently before Parliament to make wide ranging changes of a physical, financial and legal nature without democratic decision making.

Please think again North West Water. Your business is not running public parks. This Park was a gift by Lord Leverhulme to the people. If it's goodwill you want here then why not hand the running and decision making of the Park fully to the people's elected representatives?

J B Keenan

Lower Rivington House

Dryfield Lane, Rivington

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.