A LEDBURY park has been left unloved and unusable, a resident claims.

Dating from the early 1990s, the largely wooded Ledbury Riverside Park runs between the river Leadon and the A417 Leadon Way which now girds the town.

“It looks neglected and unloved,” according to Edd Hogan, who runs in the park.

“The river floods and erodes the paths, their wooden edging his disappeared, and they don’t then get repaired,” he said.

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“Most paths are now ankle-breakers and some are totally overgrown and unusable, and certainly not pushchair- or wheelchair-friendly.”

Given the town’s growing population, “it seems counter-intuitive to neglect this important green space, which ought to be a big selling point of the town and a place for recreation and keeping fit”, he added.

No one lays claim to the park online, and it has no published maps or guides, but it is in fact owned and managed by Herefordshire Council, which did not respond when asked about its apparently unmaintained and deteriorating state.

A 214-page environmental report on the town which it published two years ago mentions the park only once in passing.

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Maintaining and enhancing the recreational value of the Riverside Park, and extending it further to the north and south, is among the policies of the town’s development plan adopted last year – which describes the park as “an important local feature that also forms the spine for a green infrastructure corridor”.

The town’s mayor Cllr Stephen Chowns said the condition of the park, along with the road surfaces in the town itself, “both give cause for concern”.

“Ledbury town council is frequently and regularly making known to the county council the streets and public areas which are in the most urgent need of attention,” he said.

But he added: “The situation has been brought about over a number of years by the reduction in funding by national government.”