Rhyddings Park Lottery Grant
 

Rhyddings Park have been successfull with the first stage of their £1 Million lottery grant.

An award of £50,000 has been made to allow consultants and architects to draw up plans, after consulatation with local residents, for the restoration of the park.

Re: Rhyddings Park Lottery Grant
 

What form will the consultation take?

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Will fifty grand be enough to bring in that lovely Tony Wilson and his fragrant ex-beauty Queen missus Yvette?

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Congrats Mate, it will be nice to see it back to its former glory

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Agreed, congatulations to all concerned, but....

Fifty grand to be allocated for consultation? That's a twentieth of the total budget, if they get it.

I can see the need that it requiress a plan, but spending such a large amount on consultation and architectural plans doesn't mean that will happen.

Not being negative as such, just shocked, or did the grant stipulate that amount had to be spent?

How much does a gardener get?

Re: Rhyddings Park Lottery Grant
 

As far as I know the £50,000 does not form part of the £1 million. This grant has been applied for by HBC and not the Friends but I do have a good understanding on how it all works. This first stage will allow HBC to bring in the experts to consult with local residents to find out what we want in the park. They will then draw up plans with costings etc to form the second stage of the bid for approval by the lottery funders. It is a very slow process, it has taken over a year so far and this is not due to HBC but the funding body. They returned the initial bid and recommended HBC re submit it to a newly created scheme. This meant HBC had to rewrite the bid to meet the new critera. They then returned the bid saying the consultancy fees were too high. This was adjusted and re submitted by HBC. It was returned again saying the consultancy fees were now too low. It was finally resubmitted and accepted. You can see the hoops the lottery funder is making HBC jump through.

In fact I am only making assumptions as to what is going on from the news on 107 The Bee yesterday.
I am still waiting for the Council to actually remember that they set up a Friends of Rhyddings Park and officially inform us of this superb news.

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This is great news, the park has been seriously lacking for many years.
Its all well and good though restoring it, but if they do get the lottery grant are they going to spend some on security so that we can enjoy the new facilities the park will have to offer for years to come?

Any ideas what they are going to do? I'd like to see a bigger more adventurous playground, that my son can enjoy. it needs some sort of water feature to, like a pond or boating lake (prob not possible though)

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Ponds cause a whole heap of safety problems so I doubt that would happen.

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Up until the late sixties the park was locked at night by the park keeper, who lived in Ryhdding's Cottage, next to the Stop and Rest. Woe betide you if you'd scaled the gates. You got chased out, with a boot print on your backside.

There used to be railings, and the gates were locked at sundown. They still do that in a lot of public parks in London.

Sounds as if it would eliminate a lot of today's problems if it was reintroduced.

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It would be good yes but imagine the cost for railing all the way round.
Why not suggest it at the public consultation.

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I've got them a quote.....fifty thousand pounds!:D

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£50k would not cover the railings. Its only to draw up the proposals. I know it might sound a lot to many people buts it isn't really.

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You haven't seen my quote, fifty grand might be enough, as most of the infrastructure is already there.

Fifty grand is a lot. Be it for a report by some poncey consultancy agency, or a pretty artist's image of the proposed development.

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The next stage will probably take 2 or 3 months and involve a lot of work. Architect's don't work for nothing.

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So if they get the full grant when will renovation work start (approx)??
Just that it would be nice to keep up with progress.

Re: Rhyddings Park Lottery Grant
 

That's excellent news Neil.

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How come the press knew about it before the Friends of Rhyddings Park?


It doesn't sound very democratic, or even as the council's spin doctors called it, giving the power to the people, if HBC informed the radio and press before they did the Friend's group.

Re: Rhyddings Park Lottery Grant
 

I don't want to comment on that point just yet except to say we are still waiting to officially find out what is happening.

I would not expect to see any actual ground works start until the end of 2007. Maybe even later if the application is returned for extra infomation like stage one was a couple of times. As I said above this was not down to HBC but the funding body. It is a slow process with no way to speed it up.

Re: Rhyddings Park Lottery Grant
 

Although it is good news that this might eventually come off. The million pound might not stretch very far, if fifty grand isn't enough to secure the park at night times.

They could build say, a sensual garden for less sighted and disabled people, a maze, make the paths safe, improve the drainage, and replant the empty flower beds etc., but without pledging long term investment for continuous upkeep and maintainance, it will soon be in the same sorry state again as it is now.

Re: Rhyddings Park Lottery Grant
 

Another positive point for the park is that part of the project will be to employ a full time park keeper. This is a separate grant that can be applied for if the main one is successfull.
This was mentioned in the original HBC meetings about the park and the lottery grant over a year ago now.

Re: Rhyddings Park Lottery Grant
 

That's great information, thanks.

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Re: Rhyddings Park Lottery Grant
 

No, in case you move back, and want to live in it.:D

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I like the bit about consulting with local residents.:) Better than hving some pea brained scheme thrust upon them from on high and then having nothing but grumbles about it afterwards.

Re: Rhyddings Park Lottery Grant
 

I can imagine there will be some of those anyway Willow. Probably by people who did not get involved when they had the chance.

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Good job there are others, the lazy arses can rely on then.:D

Re: Rhyddings Park Lottery Grant
 

I'm confused and wonder if you know the answer to this one Neil.

I saw the lovely picture of you and our glorious leader in the paper announcing the £50k and then further on in the paper I saw the article about the £500k that is being applied for on behalf of all 11 parks.

Can you clarify the situation - are they part of the same bid?

Re: Rhyddings Park Lottery Grant
 

Did anyone notice in last week's (or it might have been the week before) the article in the Observer about Rhyddings Park. It was in the 5 years ago section and said that Rhyddings Park had been awarded some money (think it was £10k) to do a consultation with the local people about what they wanted in the park.

Clearly nothing happened at the time and it all went quiet until the Friends of Rhyddings Park group was set up a year ago. I wonder what happened to the consultation at the time - anyone know?

Re: Rhyddings Park Lottery Grant
 

Nice picture.

At first I thought it was the Observer's first civil union photograph.:D

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No they are not. I am not 100% on the other bid, I will try and find out though.

I think it was longer than 5 years, maybe it was 10. HBC did apply for a HLF grant for Rhyddings at that time. If you look at the lottery grants awarded to Hyndburn on the lottery web site it shows the amount awarded and the date (I think I showed you a copy of it when you filled that grant application form in for us). They got the 1st stage as we have just done again. Unfortuneatly it was rejected at the second stage that time.

This time we are hoping to be succesfull all the way. As far as I am aware, this time the HLF approached HBC suggesting they applied for a grant for Rhyddings Park again. That in itself is quite promising but, no matter what you read or hear about the grant it is by no means a dead cert. There is a lot of hard work to be done by everyone involved to make sure we are successful this time.

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Will the original consultation work be revisted or are they starting from scratch?

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From scratch, it was years ago after all. I have to arrange a meeting next week with the project manager for the bid regarding planning. I expect they will be discussing it at the next Area Council Meeting on Tuesday 7th November at 7pm at Rhyddings School for a change. It's not on the agenda as sent out but that was before we found out about stage 1 so I expect it will change. I can never attend the Area Council planning meetings as I am always working so can't say for certain.

Re: Rhyddings Park Lottery Grant
 

Only 5 years ago, so not an awful lot will have changed I wouldn't have thought. Sorry, don't want to sound as if griping here, just think it would be useful to review the previous consultation so that this second attempt does not simply go over old ground. Particularly as this new one has to be more comprehensive, I'm sure that FoRP wouldn't want to waste their time consulting the local people only to be told that the bid was no better than the first time. Learn by mistakes and all that!

Shame I can't make it to the Area Council meeting - I have an Oswaldtwistle Players meeting on the same night that I can't get out of.