Heres a question

Fromvert

This thread is probably in the wrong area but thought the people here would be interested.
Me and a couple of my friends decided to go to our local park and have a game of football. Just before were about to start a man approached us and told us we cant use the pitches as he said they were unplayable for the local team which ment we couldnt use them and we should move off the pitch. We were told to use areas of the park that were not pitches. I found this ridiculous as probably more then 95% of the park is pitches. I politely told him we wouldnt be moving so he called the park warden and he tried arguing his point as to why we should move. They informed us that they would call the gardai. They then spent more than an hour watching us play football while some clown is flying aroung the park on a scrambler weaving around children and local people but we were the problem and this wasnt the issue.
I found this irratating and just got me thinking as to were are people ment to go especially children if there not allowed to play on the streets and are directed to the park were they will then be told they cant use the park.
So my question is can you be stopped from using your local park?

Feel free to move this were it should be mods.

g'em

Umm.... legal discussion? Sorry Mods, nto sure if that's right, bounce back to Fitness if needs be!!

Relevant

Why would the council let you use the pitches if they were unplayable? Playing on them would destroy the surface and they would have to pay to get them re-layed.

Iirc there used be a page on teletext that listed all the unplayable pitches on a weekly basis.

Fromvert

Thanks for moving it for some reason I couldnt find the legal area.

Fromvert

I have seen this pitch in an awful state before and this pitch has never been relayed unless the councils idea of relaying is dumping sand on it. But how are they to prove to me that it is unplayable, they said that no matches were on but I was told after asking around that the reason for matches not being on was that the referees wouldnt work the bank holiday weekend. Dont know if this is true or not.
But if I was in the wrong why didnt the gardai turn up to remove me like they said would happen.
Yeah dont think that teletext page is around anymore.
But can you be prevented from using your public park? Why is it there if you cant use it?

nuac

If the Council own and are the managers of the park, they would seem to be entitled to declare pitches on it unplayable in inclement weather.

this would be to avoid undue wear on the pitch, and also possibly for health and safety reasons.

It is a sad fact of modern life that Councils and others providing facilities are exposed to all sorts of legal actions, some justified, some not.

Fromvert

Fair enough I can see the point that if the pitch is ruined teams cant use it. They did try the safety side for an argument but they werent convincing because straight away after that they pointed to a section of grass that we could use. Well this area had potholes and divets throughout that were filled with water. When we pointed this out there response was
'whats wrong are yous afraid of water now'.
I found this hilarious and refused to continue the argument.
I'm just wondering has anybody else ever come across these sort of disagreements with their local council and what was the outcome?

servicecharge

The worst of all laws: bye-laws.

They are a pain in the arse as the council has so many. The bye-laws regarding parks probably empower wardens to control the use of the park and potentially a small fine. But god knows if the council actually has the power, the warden is probably the only one to ever read the bye-laws involved.

If you are really curious look up the bye-laws in Iris Oifiguil.