THANK-you for publishing my letter in the Central Fife Times (April 27). I was, however, a little puzzled to see the letter appear online 2 days ago with the comment appended: "The Public Park Improvement Group is currently in the middle of a project which will see the park brought up to the standard the correspondent wishes to see."

Who wrote this comment? (It was the comment of the Editor and was also in the paper).

Another curiosity which has appeared in your online edition but not the latest paper edition also popped up 2 days ago and also concerns the Public Park Improvement Group. Once again it seems to have been written at the behest of the Public Park Group as a roundabout response both to the criticisms I made in my original letter and to those which were made on facebook. In a thread discussing the recent vandalism to newly-planted saplings in the public park, this comment was made on Facebook: "There is a proven way of reducing vandalism like this which is to get a community actively involved in improving their town. Growing in Lochgelly is doing exactly that, and although they have suffered a bit of vandalism, it is nothing like what nay-sayers expected.

The problem with the Public Park is that it's seen as a Fife Council thing, and although the community council is involved, it has not succeeded in involving the local community in its planning or any of the work (the group may think they have but many in the community don't feel involved or genuinely listened to over their wishes for the project).

For starters the public park group should have been much more widely constituted than the community council (which many people see as a self-serving clique anyway) and had representatives from key park-user groups.

This would mean school kids, including primary school children (this is what happens on community projects and even planning committees in Scandinavia), and perhaps each school could have been asked to do a project on what their pupils would like to see in a park, how they would deal with problems etc (endless scope for exciting practical problems there which the Curriculum for Excellence is all about). An example where this approach has had world-recognised success - and reduced vandalism to the point that floodlights, CCTV cameras and locking facilities at night have not been necessary, is Merrylee Primary School in Glasgow."

This, together with my letter, prompted Stevie Murray, the Public Park chair, to tell the Central Fife Times that: "We made contact with all local schools last year and so that the children could be involved in the final designs of the play area" and that the group "consists of representatives from various groups in Lochgelly including the residents committee, gala committee, community development forum, Growing in Lochgelly and the community council".

I don't know if Mr Murray succeeded in involving children in the planning and design of the park, but they are not formally included in the committee and it is striking that this is the first time he publicly mentions their involvement. As for the group consisting of representatives from various groups, I challenge Mr Murray to name all these individuals, the groups they represent and when they joined the Public Park Group. The first one of these groups knew that they were represented was when they saw Mr Murray's claim online!

Mr Murray might dearly wish that he was leading an inclusive, genuinely grassroots group that represents a broad church of park-users, as opposed to a bunch of Labour cronies from the Lochgelly Community Council who are doing Fife Council's bidding. Since its inception, the Public Park Group has alienated people by its lack of transparency and accountability. Now it can add shameless spin to its list of achievements.

PLANTER.