Knowsley Council has agreed to drop proposals to sell 10% of the borough’s parks.

The council had planned to raise a £40m endowment from the sale of 17 parkland sites in order to maintain the rest of the sites ‘forever’.

However, new council leader Cllr Graham Morgan, said feedback from the local community had caused him to reverse the decision.

Cllr Morgan said: ‘The message from local communities has been loud and clear on this issue – they value our parks too much to lose them. With this in mind, I am going to take forward a proposal to reinstate the £1.3m of council funding for the parks and open spaces budget from April 2019.

‘We will still have to make savings to balance our budget, and that is not going to be easy, but we know that our residents want us to look elsewhere.’