Labour-controlled Sheffield City Council recently sold part of Graves Park to a property developer, despite more than 13,000 people signing a petition against the sale.

When the issue came up during discussion of the Council’s Budget meeting last Friday, you might have thought that Labour would have tried to show a bit of remorse or regret, given the scale of the outcry from local people.

Instead the Labour councillor responsible for the sale stood up and proudly said that they were “not remotely ashamed” of selling Cobnar Cottage and the park land on which it stands. This was greeted by the cheers and applause of the other Sheffield Labour councillors.

Such breath-taking arrogance clearly shows that they do not care about the views of local people, our local heritage and take our area for granted.

Regardless of the amount of money raised by the sale, once it has been spent we will still be left with a park that is smaller than it was before, protective charitable covenants that have been broken by the Council and an alienated Friends group that were accused by Labour councillors of being political puppets.

No amount of developers’ money can restore the trust and goodwill that has been lost through Labour’s actions.

The Liberal Democrats have been fighting to protect Graves Park for almost 20 years and will continue to do so. We protected it during the six years when we ran the council and would always do so. Not one blade of grass would be in danger of being sold off to the highest bidder.

On May 5th you have the chance to say who you want to represent our community and will have three votes to cast in the local council elections.

If you want the team who have a track record of protecting local parks and working for local people all year round, please use all your votes to support your local Lib Dem team.