Friends of Gorse Hill Park, together with The One Trafford Partnership, have won a bid of £41,168 for improvements at Gorse Hill Park.
The grant, which has been awarded by Viridor Credits via the Landfill Communities Fund, will be added to the existing capital funding of £72,000. Over £113,000 will go towards major improvements of the play area in Gorse Hill Park.
The One Trafford Partnership, a collaboration between Trafford Council and Amey, will begin work on Wednesday 27 March 2019. The play area will receive new and more play equipment, new safety surfacing and fencing.
To help pick the best and most appealing play area equipment, consultations with local schools took place in March 2018 to see which pieces were most popular with local children. The play area will now include equipment such as a tyre swing, an aero whirl, a space ball netted climbing frame, new balance beams, slides and a see-saw. Additionally, new grass areas will be laid and trees will be planted to increase green space in the play area.
Executive Councillor for Environment, Air Quality and Climate Change, Cllr Stephen Adshead said:
We are really pleased that Viridor Credits have recognised how valuable Gorse Hill Park is to the community, particularly families, children and local schools. The project will see a number of brand new pieces of equipment which will no doubt have a positive impact on the play time enjoyed at the park. A huge thank you to Gorse Hill Primary School, St. Teresa’s Primary School, Kings Road Primary School, St. Ann’s RC Primary School, Victoria Park Junior School and Stretford High School for their input into the bid and the design consultations.”
Viridor Credits Environmental Company is an independent, non-for-profit organisation that awards funding for community, heritage and biodiversity projects across the UK through the Landfill Community Fund.
The Landfill Communities Fund (LCF) is an innovative tax credit scheme enabling Landfill Operators (LOs) to contribute money to organisations enrolled with ENTRUST as Environmental Bodies (EBs). EBs use this funding for a wide range of community and environmental projects in the vicinity of landfill sites. LOs are able to claim a credit against their landfill tax liability for 90% of the contributions they make.
Since its inception in 1996, over £1.4billion has been spent on more than 60,000 projects across the UK, and now Gorse Hill Park has become part of this legacy.
Gareth Williams, Operations Manager at Viridor Credits said:
The Friends of Gorse Hill Park have put a lot of time and effort into ensuring that this project reaches fruition. The whole community will benefit from the wonderful play area they will create.”
Paula Pearson, Friends of Gorse Hill Park, said:
We are delighted and so excited to know that the work on our new park playground is about to start. It has had huge community involvement in reaching this point, particularly local school children who voted for which equipment would be installed. As well as the new play items, some of our old and much loved equipment will be restored, and reinstated, which pleases many parents who grew up with them, making it a very beloved and unique playground. We'd like to thank One Trafford who have turned ideas into reality, and Viridor Credits and Trafford Council for funding our park. Once completed, families will have fun playing safely in Gorse Hill Park.”
To find out more about other green space capital schemes, visit www.trafford.gov.uk/parkmaintenance.
Posted on Monday 25th March 2019