Councillors are being asked to consider spending £9,000 a year to lock a public park at weekends - despite being told it could be a waste of time.

Before February 2006, Florence Park in Oxford was locked at evenings and weekends but since then it has been left unlocked on Saturdays and Sundays as part of budget cuts within Oxford City Council's parks section.

Now, following complaints from residents and the Friends of Florence Park, the council's Cowley area committee is being asked to spend £9,150 a year to pay staff overtime to lock and unlock the park each weekend.

A report to be considered by the committee today, from parks manager John Wade, said: "Since Florence Park has been left unlocked there have been incidents of antisocial behaviour and criminal damage. But these are not associated with the park being unlocked because similar incidents have occurred in the past when it wasn't."

He said advantages of locking the park were that it would allow anyone in the park after locking time to be challenged, limit the vehicle use of the parks, reduce the risk of fly-tipping and could increase security with a reduction in levels of vandalism and graffiti.

But he said there were disadvantages too as it could see an increase in damage to fences and gates due to forced entry and would restrict use by people not able to visit during normal hours - such as dog walkers early in the day and late in the evening.

He also said there could be a risk of park rangers being assaulted if they tried to evict large groups when locking up the park.

It would also be diverting resources away from improving parks to repairing fences and gates and could be considered a waste of officer time due to the poor condition of parks fences and gates.

Of the city parks, four used to be locked, Florence Park, Headington Hill Park, Bury Knowle Park and Hinksey Park but since 2005 Bury Knowle and Headington Hill parks have been left unlocked, with Florence Park being left unlocked at weekends since February 2006.

The other parks and open spaces are unlocked mainly because they are not fenced, Mr Wade said in his report.

Bryan Keen, Cowley councillor and chairman of the committee, said: "People at Florence Park have been complaining, it's mostly the Friends of the park and people who have lived in the area since the 1930s.

"I haven't heard that there are any problems, it's just one of the parks that always used to be locked up."