THE costs of the Throop Nature Park, which could top £10m over its lifetime, has been questioned by councillors.

Some are critical of spending more than £600,000 in the first year and the estimated inflation-proof £100,000 a year over 80 years to maintain the area at Hicks Farm, alongside the River Stour.

Several councillors say they fail to understand how allowing the area to return to nature can be so costly and have criticised the level of management fees BCP will receive for overseeing the project.

Most of the money to set up and run the park will come from a heathland mitigation fund, paid into by developers over the years, rather than from the council tax.

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The initial costs includes £165,000 for new paths and resurfacing; £60,000 for electric vehicle charging, £30,000 for a new car park access, £20,000 each for signage, seating and an ecological survey, £50,000 for planting trees and hedging, £60,000 for fencing and £5,000 for a new height barrier to the car park.

The remainder is accounted for by a 10 per cent contingency sum for possible cost over-runs, professional fees and project management costs. Between them they take up a third of the initial set up costs.

Council figures initially showed £100,000 a year for maintenance but when questioned officers said that the majority of that would be for staff whose duties will include ongoing repairs and maintenance and locking the car park at night.

Cllr Ann Stribley told the council’s overviews and scrutiny committee that she failed to understand how the costs had been allowed to mount up.

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“This is meant to be a natural area,” she said, “It works out at £21,000 for an acre over 30 acres…it’s a huge amount of money. I could have an awful lot of landscaping for that amount.”

Cllr Stribley called for an assurance that other parks in the area would not have their budgets cut to help pay for the project – claiming that the council had been unable to find £40,000 elsewhere to install CCTV to stop trees being cut down, but seemed to easily able to justify the sums involved with the Throop project.

“We don’t seem to have £100,000 a year, inflation-proofed, anywhere else,” said Cllr Stribley.

Cllr David Kelsey said that while some of the set-up costs did seem high it was necessary to make the area safe and secure. Referring to the lockable car park barriers and heigh restrictions he said: “The last thing we want is yobby kids in souped up Ford Fiesta down there.”

Overview and scrutiny committee chairman Cllr Steve Bartlett said it had to be accepted that the proposals had planning permission and would go ahead: “But we need to be careful about how this is handled given the huge opposition to it.”

The council’s cabinet is being asked next week (9th) to agree a one-off £100,000 Community Infrastructure Levy payment for delivering elements of the scheme which cannot be achieved using heathland mitigation funds.

The council’s committee meeting approved the nature park plan despite 380 objections from residents. That meeting heard that the lack of a suitable natural area to serve Bournemouth had led to around 1,000 homes with planning permission being put on hold.