Major Park overhaul celebrated...

The multi-million pound revamp of Darlington's South Park was celebrated with a festival on Sunday (May 7th). The park has been restored with £3.9m from the Heritage Lottery Fund. The work has involved returning the Victorian Park to its former glory and has included improving the lake, landscaping and many new facilities.

What has this to do with Saltburn? Well nothing on the face of it. Except that Saltburn also has it's own Victorian Park which has declined over the years and has a similar develoment potential to provide a wide variety of leisure facilities for all the community.

The refurbishment of South Park includes restoring the bandstand and terracotta fountain, draining and dredging the lake and building new footpaths. The work has also included the building of educational facilities, restoring the café, creating an adventure playground for children, a ball park and skateboard park. The skateboard park itself was designed with the help of local youngsters, who came up with the idea of including an area for their hobby in the new-look park. In fact the whole scheme seems to have involved and included the whole community - from the very young through to teens as well as adults and even local prisoners have been involved in designing and making furniture for the park - combining the best of it's heritage with modern day facilities. Now that seems like a great idea to me and one which could conceivably be developed in Saltburn. Perhaps ...