Skip to main content

Fort Royal Play Area

New play area and telescope feature in park overhaul

Andrew Warren
27 October. Updated: 27 October 07:55
A BRAND new play area and a high powered telescope offering views of the Malvern Hills and Worcester Cathedral are set to be the centrepieces of a refurbished city park.
The Standard previously reported how Worcester City Council had set aside £250,000 from its £1.78million cash surplus to begin renovating Fort Royal Park, which was a key battle site during the English Civil War in 1651.
Ward councillor Jabba Riaz had led the calls for a major overhaul of the park, with the support of the Battle of Worcester Society. At a meeting of the council's scrutiny committee on Monday night (October 24), cleaner and greener manager David Sutton revealed up to £110,000 will be used to build the new play area for the park, which will be based on the successful play area in Power Park in St Peter's. Local community groups and schools will be able to have their say on how the area should look, and it should be installed by March next year.
The telescope will cost £10,000, and will be powerful enough to make out facial features on the statues at the cathedral, but precautions will be taken to ensure it is not used inappropriately to look into people's houses.
Nearly £30,000 will be spent on repairing run down and damaged walls on both Wylds Lane and London Road, and £7,000 will be spent on improved signs and entrances to the park.
Up to £25,000 will be spent bidding for a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund, which Mr Sutton said could eventually secure more than £1million in funding to make the park a destination for visitors interested in the history of the park and the civil war.
There will be £60,000 put aside for any match funding requirements, and 17,000 has been set aside as a contingency.
At the meeting, St John's councillor Matt Lamb said he was pleased to see the park get a refurbishment, but was keen for the city to make more of its civil war past.
"I have visited some of the great battlefields around the world and I have seen how well it can be done. I don't think we make enough of our history, because to me Fort Royal looks scruffy. It is great to have money spent but I was hoping for more of a link to the civil war," he said.
Coun Paul Denham said he was concerned about car parking around the area if it became too popular, but Mr Sutton said visitors would be encouraged to use car parks in King Street and St Martin's Gate.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Keep Calm and Carry On?

A sad situation which has come to light over the last month. It is in relation to a TRO on London Road between St Martin’s Church on London Road and Wych Elm Close on London Road. I heard about this TRO in December last year. I immediately let the Warden of St Martin’s church know as well as the Rev Ken Boyce about the matter as they and their Congregation would be most affected by this. The historic Church and Hall of ST Martin’s is an integral part of our community where many users use the facilities for Worship, community activities such as Fitness activities, Playgroups and meetings, parties as well as the traditional marriage ceremonies, christenings and funerals. The use of on street parking is vital to the Church and its success. The TRO proposed would effectively cause residents and Church users alike to park in already congested side streets like Victoria Avenue & Sebright Avenue or much further away, thus causing the same issues further along the road. The T...
2 comments
Read more

Royal Porcelain- Abandoned Building and Gulls

    The site of the former Porcelain Factory was once a proud heritage asset for our city, sold of years ago to a national builder Berkley Homes.   To one side it is occupied and to the other you could be forgiven to think that it was an abandoned haunted house in the woods which time has forgotten. Over time rats/Gulls and Pigeons have taken over the building causing a huge nuisance to the local residents the roof collapsed and some action was taken to board up the windows. Residents have contacted us and we have taken action – We have been in contact with enforcement officers to ask them to serve notice on the developer to put new windows in and to restore it to its former glory. We have also been in contact with Gull control officers to ask them to implement gull control measures in the area. Developers must be held to account and not just scarper from a site once they have made their money.   We will be writing to the developer to express our concer...
Post a Comment
Read more

Community and The Big Society

'It’s no new, modern creation; no complex, mysterious concept; its people helping people for the greater good; its individuals taking more responsibility for themselves and their neighborhoods; its communities being empowered to shape their place, to find and deliver solutions to local challenges together' (1). So why may you ask am I writing this a year on from David Cameron’s Big Society Concept?  I suppose it’s to highlight; that it’s kind of been there all along, in various forms and guises. The Asian community when first arriving to this country were the epitome of the Big Society Concept; ‘as Asian communities have historically lived in extended families that included grandparents, parents, aunties and uncles acting as unpaid nannies and baby sitters for young children; carers for the elderly and guardians of young adults’(2) . The Asian community, to many people may seem closed and misunderstood to the outside world, but underneath that illusion, a whole host of...
Post a Comment
Read more