By Richmond Council Leader, Cllr. Gareth Roberts.

On Wednesday evening, after meeting a few friends, we found ourselves locked in the Woodland Gardens of Bushy Park.

The Woodland Gardens are a self contained, fenced area of Bushy Park with lockable gates.

There is no direct access from the street into the Woodland Gardens, only from within Bushy Park itself. It is a park within a park.

Though the main Teddington and Hampton entrances to Bushy Park itself are currently closing at 9.30pm to deal with anti-social behaviour, The Woodland Gardens, according to the signs at the gates, close at dusk. On Wednesday evening dusk was a little after 10pm.

To beat the main gate curfew we left at 9.10pm only to find that all of the gates to the Woodland Gardens had been locked. As we moved from gate to gate seeking an exit we must have encountered at least 15 people , including one lone older woman, who were also trapped.

We saw no Royal Parks staff warning that the gates were soon to be locked. We saw no Royal Parks staff doing a sweep to check for people locked in.

Fortunately, we were all able to scramble up a fence and on to a wall and get out. However what would have happened to somebody in a wheelchair?

What if we hadn't met the lone older woman and she remained alone?

What would be the effect on somebody who had an anxiety disorder?

And what about those people who are physically incapable of scaling a fence to hop onto a wall?

And at no point did I see any signs advising how to get help if trapped

In my view this is a clear safeguarding issue and the lack of checks demonstrated negligence on the part of the Royal Parks.

Clearly an arbitrary 'dusk' closure doesn't work.

I have, therefore, suggested the following alternative measures to Bushy Park to address this issue:

1. Set a time, different according to the time of year, at which the Woodland Gardens will close. Not dusk, that clearly doesn't work. It needs to be a timed closure.

1. Place clear signage on each of outside of the gates that the Woodland Gardens will close at that time.

1. On the inside of the gates a sign should be placed directing people to the next gate and indicating at what time that gate will be locked.

1. Finally leave the last gate unlocked for at least 30 - 60 minutes after closing time to allow for a sweep to be conducted and to ask people to leave. The gate could easily be fitted with a mechanism which could only be operated from inside the gate to stop people trying to enter.

1. And of course clear signage advising how to get help if trapped inside.

The Woodland Gardens are a beautiful, tranquil part of Bushy Park almost tailor made to allow for quiet evening enjoyment during the current warm evenings of lockdown.

However, visitors need to be able to visit them confident in the knowledge that they won't become trapped.

I doubt I'm the first person to become trapped in the Woodland Gardens however if the Royal Parks move swiftly to adopt the reasonable measures I've suggested I very much hope that I'll be one of the last.

Teddington Nub News has asked the Royal Parks for a response.