Coun Ken Moss
Cabinet member for parks and open spaces
WITH spring just around the corner, it’s a great time to get out and about in one of the borough’s 11 parks, to get a breath of fresh air and blow away those winter cobwebs.
We’re particularly blessed here in Hyndburn to have so many enthusiastic and hardworking community groups and volunteers who work with the council to improve our parks, giving their time and energy so freely to enhance these unique green open spaces for all the community to enjoy. So much good work goes on, day in and day out; I don’t have the space here to tell you about all the sterling work that goes on, but I’ll just flag up a few recent highlights and say a huge thanks to all our volunteers and community groups, who do so much fantastic work to enhance our parks and open spaces.
It’s thanks to groups like these that Rhyddings Park in Oswaldtwistle is set to be transformed soon, as work to breathe new life into this historic and much loved park begins this spring, not only revolutionising the park, but also bringing 600 training opportunities and new jobs to the area.
This comes after years of working with partners, including the Friends of Rhyddings Park, the Civic Arts Centre team and Newground, to win a successful £2 million lottery bid for the park.
The park’s Coach House, currently home to a series of derelict sheds and unused buildings, will soon become a café and community centre, with an attractive kitchen garden complete with a Victorian style glasshouse.
The work, which begins in April, will also enhance the many entrances into the park and provide an array of interesting features, including a woodland glade, community orchard, ornamental flower beds and performance space.
A new outdoor gym, the first of its kind in Hyndburn, has been installed in Mercer Park, Clayton-le-Moors, thanks to the fundraising efforts of the Friends of Mercer Park Group, with the help of the Clayton and Altham Community Association.
The outdoor gym gives people free access to exercise, with equipment similar to conventional indoor gym facilities, but which has been specifically designed for use outdoors. So if you’re a gym fan, why not try an outdoor workout in the beautiful surroundings of Mercer Park for a change?
Milnshaw Residents Association and the Hyndburn Green Spaces Forum were instrumental in getting funding for a recently installed large multi-use games area in Milnshaw Park, Accrington, giving local people the chance to play a number of sports there, including basketball, football, cricket, rounders and junior and senior kaddabi.
And finally, spring is a time when attention turns to our gardens and allotments. Growing your own fruit and veg is really popular these days, both for healthy eating and a healthy lifestyle, and with a wide range of allotment plots, both small and large, up for grabs at the council’s Accrington and Baxenden allotment sites, even more green fingered Hyndburn folk now have the chance to grow fruit and vegetables.
If you fancy giving it a go and growing your own, call us on 01254 388111, or visit www.hyndburnbc.gov.uk for more information.