A FUND of £1.1million to regenerate the borough’s playgrounds may be overstretched, the council has admitted.

The money was awarded to the council by the Government as part of a £235million national scheme to improve children’s play areas by 2011.

But service development manager Chris Moran conceded that with 22 sites to be regenerated across Waltham Forest, the £1.1m “doesn’t go that far”.

This means that the cash cannot fund extra park keepers to cover the playgrounds, prompting fears of vandalism at the recent Walthamstow and Lea Bridge community council meeting.

Mr Moran added that fencing around new play areas could take up as much as £110,000 from the fund and that the council was looking at ways to cut the cost.

He said: “A lot of the sites are fenced to keep dogs out of the play areas and this uses about 10 per cent of the budget. We’re looking at using hedging and natural materials instead.”

But Cllr Afzal Akram cabinet member for community safety and Lea Bridge ward councillor also voiced concerns that more hedges could encourage drug dealing.

He said: “With hedges instead of fences, Leyton Manor park had a lot of drug dealing. It’s had £80,000 spent on it in the last year - we don’t want hedges.”

Cllr Akram added that planning applications which included hedges intead of fences were likely to be looked on less favourably by the council’s planning committee.

“These problems are being tackled by parks mobile team, the street wardens and the Safer Neighbourhoods Team,” Mr Moran said.

“We’re designing the playgrounds using anti-graffiti materials and we’re making sure sites are really interesting so that children will want to look after them.”