Conservative councillors have produced a fully costed plan to reverse Labour's "deeply damaging" Play Centre cuts, as part of alternative proposals for Greenwich Council's budget for the next three years due to be voted on at the Town Hall on Thursday (26 February). The moves comes in advance of a public hearing next week on Labour's decision to close three staffed, supervised Play Centres - triggered by a formal challenge from Conservative councillors Matt Hartley and Roger Tester who have been campaigning to save the Coldharbour Adventure Play Centre for more than a year.
Leader of Greenwich Conservatives Matt Hartley said: "Given Labour’s deeply damaging cuts to the borough’s Play Centres, Conservative councillors are proposing to restore the full budget for the Play Centre service, to give the Council time to develop new proposals and run a real and genuine consultation that takes young people’s views into account.
“Our plan to restore the full budget for the Adventure Play Centres are fully costed and independently validated by Council officers – and I would urge councillors from all parties to vote for them at the Town Hall."
Councillor Roger Tester added: "The role that Coldharbour Adventure Play Centre plays on the Coldharbour Estate cannot be overstated. It is simply outrageous that our Play Centre service is being ended - without any guarantee of a staffed service in the planned Community Hub that will replace it - particularly after the Council's failure to even speak to the young people who use the Coldharbour site as they promised.
"We hope that the public hearing triggered by our Call-In at the Town Hall next Monday will result in the Labour Cabinet thinking again about these cuts. And in the meantime councillors will now have a chance to vote for our costed proposal to restore the full Play Centre budget - I hope that every councillor who cares about the value our Play Centres add to our communities will vote for our amendment."
You can read more about the Conservative alternative budget proposals here.
Residents who would like to speak at next week's 'call-in' meeting on Labour's decision end the supervised Play Centre services (being held at 6.30pm on Monday 2nd March) must request to speak by emailing [email protected] before a strict deadline of 5pm this Friday 27th February 2026.
