A FRUSTRATED Stourbridge park user says the problem of council staff hogging all the parking spaces at the borough beauty spot has worsened.

The News reported in May last year about how most of the 130 car parking spaces in Mary Stevens Park were being snaffled up on weekdays by workers from Dudley Council's children's services department which is now based in the Norton park.

Councillor Tim Crumpton, Dudley's cabinet member for children's services, pledged to try and resolve the situation but eight months on, park user Simon Sims, who drives his disabled elderly parents to the park, said spaces continue to get snapped up early and cars are even left blocking the main driveway and footpath and taking up disabled bays.

He said: "I was really hoping some compromise would be reached but matters are just getting worse.

"I like to walk my dog there as I grew up over the road from the park and it holds a lot of happy memories.

"My dad had several heart attacks, heart bypass and a mild stroke a few years ago and used to enjoy a daily walk, as did my mom who suffers debilitating arthritis, and I find the flat ground easy to walk on with them.

"If we cannot park we have to visit our local shopping centre, which is not as healthy for my parents as the fresh air they get in our beautiful park.

"Something needs to be done about this before the spring and summer months are here."

He added: "The park was left for the use of the people of Stourbridge, not for the use of council workers.

"Before the council staff arrived there was never a problem with parking."

Norton ward councillor Heather Rogers said the parking situation should have been thought through before 300 children's services staff were moved into the park and she added: "At a special meeting of the Ernest Stevens Trust Management Committee in September - Cllr Crumpton agreed to review the situation but nothing has been resolved.

"Mary Stevens Park was given by Ernest Stevens to the inhabitants of Stourbridge and it is held in trust. If visitors can't park there the Labour controlled council is failing in its job as charity trustee to act in the best interests of the public."

She said she hoped the situation could be resolved before a long-awaited £3million revamp of the park gets underway this year.

Cllr Crumpton said staff were "trying to make as many spaces available to the public as possible" and that he had suggested more parking spaces could be created.

But Cllr Rogers said even if an extra 100 were put in it would not solve the problem given the number of council staff now working in the park buildings.

Cllr Crumpton continued: "The big reasons we are using Mary Stevens Park for offices is to save children's services over £150,000; it also brings social service workers together to provide a better quality service to families and children and if we didn't occupy that building we believe it would go to wrack and ruin.

"I believe extra parking spaces could be made available and I will do all I can to try and encourage staff not to park there - but they have as much right to park there as anybody else.

"The best way to go to the park is to walk to it."