CAROL Evans is looking forward to taking her one-year-old son Ollie to the new-look park in Inham Nook.
But park improvements may be scaled back in Broxtowe in future years, as the budget for parks is set to fall by £200,000 next year.
Last year, the council spent nearly £900,000 on parks in Beeston, Eastwood and Stapleford, but if budget plans go ahead, this will drop to £700,000.
The bulk of this will be made by cutting capital projects.
Mrs Evans said: "It's important to spend money on things for people to do in the area. But the parks here are good anyway – and the council can't spend money it doesn't have."
The £260,000 of improvements to Inham Nook are being funded by the council following a grant from Nottingham Express Transit. The plans are all part of the budget which will be discussed at a meeting of the full council tonightat 7pm.
Jill Owen, deputy leader of the Conservative group at the council, said there were parts of the budget she agreed with.
She said: "The budget includes a council tax freeze, which is good, but there is a lot of concern about the state of finances in future years."
David Watts, leader of the Liberal Democrat group, said he was proud of the budget.
He added: "Broxtowe Borough Council is run as a lean machine and I'm proud of the fact we have managed to freeze council tax and have protected frontline services. We only spend what we can afford and we have been doing this for the last seven years."
Speaking about the reduction in capital investment in parks, Mr Watts said: "We need to spend money on the ICT system in the coming years and have spent a lot in parks over previous years. Our budgets are based on priorities."
"Our medium-term financial strategy says we might need to find more than half a million in savings next year, but this is based on a worst-case scenario. We have found ourselves in a better financial situation this year than we were expecting and the same may well be true next year."
The budget meeting will be at the Town Hall, in Foster Avenue, Beeston.