Quote:
|
Originally Posted by g jones
There is something not right about this. Not sure what it is. Neil knows a lot more.
|
LOL something that I actually know about
There has been quite a lot of confusion over the pets corner. The initial plan instigated by ourselves (Friends of Rhyddings Park) and Nicole Cook (the then HBC Devolution Officer) was a quick clean up and return of the animals. Assuming a successfull Lottery bid the area would then have been fully refurbished.
The Lottery bid changed due to a different scheme being recomended by Lottery funder. We were then informed that the bid would not fund animals. That put is in the position of completing the full refurb on our own. Recent information from the lottery funder is that they will fund the pets if the residents want the pets area. All very confusing and not very helpful when trying to plan a project.
I will give you an idea of what is needed to be done. The whole perimeter fence really needs either replacing or strenthening, on several occasions some, shall we say naughty people, have cut the fence to steal rabbits etc. We want to reopen the centre path so that needs tarmacing to allow disabled and pram access. The fence lining the centre path is only about 6 foot high so that needs to be higher to stop anyone getting into the area. Ideally most of the area needs to be fenced over the top of the pens to prevent the hundreds of pigeons from returning again. The easiest and cheapest part is replacing all the animal houses. All of this work has to be carried out to the correct Council standard to ensure safety to the public and to comply with their public liability insurance.
I am expecting some good news on the finance side to be made public very soon so I will not say any more for now.
The long delay has actually had one good benefit for the area. When we first removed the area the ground was, to be honest, a muddy mess. We could hardly walk without slipping in the mud. ( I use the word mud to describe not only mud, don't forget the animals have been in that same area for many years
) After six months of being left untouched the ground as recovered amazingly. We now have a selection of the largest nettles in the Borough, all with plenty of roots firming up the ground very nicely. I spent a couple of hours recently strimming one of the pens and was very pleased with how firm the ground now is even after all the rain we had the same week. We had always planned to rotate an empty pen around the area each year to allow it to recover. The longer than expected closure has accomplished this for the whole area which is definately a positive outcome of the delay.
Sorry my reply got a bit long, you did ask though