Last month local Lib Dem Councillors had a regular ‘catch up’ with the Manager of Heaton Park, joined this time by the Community Impact Manager for the Parklife Festival. There is a lot happening in the Park at the moment which we wanted to feed back to you. Please do not hesitate to get in touch if you have questions or comments you would like us to pass on.

Tree Top Trek
People may be aware of the ‘Tree Top Trek’ which is being contracted in the area of woodland to the south of the reservoir. The trek is being run by an independent contractor with a lot of experience in this sort of attraction with different activities for children of different ages. A mid-June opening is planned and tickets will be between £10 and £40.

Pay and Display
Pay and display parking has been planned in the park for some years now, but quite a lot of work to enable this has been required. The hope is to introduce this from the school holidays this summer. Parking charges would start at 10am each day and start at £1. A separate discussion has been taking place around parking in some of the neighbouring streets (St Margaret’s area, Milton Road etc) and we are working with the park, residents and the Council to see if more can be done here. Double yellow lines have also been installed on the ‘outside’ of St Margaret’s Road and St Margaret’s Close to help alleviate parking and safety issues near to this entrance to the park.

Heaton Hall
A lot of work has been taking place on Heaton Hall, to preserve this important historical building. The volunteer-run Friends of Heaton Hall have been running tours every second Sunday through the summer months and a number of theatre and musical events have taken place in the Hall.

Phase 4 of the works have now begun following £357,000 of grants from Historic England which is focussed on the Orangery part of the building. Consideration is at an early stage about working with an independent operator to bring the Hall back into use for weddings, functions and events, but the Park is very conscious of the need to maintain the historic nature of the Hall and ongoing public access.

Physical Works
Quite a few things happening to improve the park:
– relaying of the Grand Lodge Drive
– main toilet block refurbishment (adding hot water, baby changing facilities, and now going to be open all year round 7 days a week once Treetop Trek opens)
– looking at an additional play area near to the lakeside

Somme
A number of residents had asked about the tiles that were created at the Somme Commemorative event last year. The Park has received a small grant to make some of the tiles into a permanent display, and is currently considering options about what would work best.

Parklife
Parklife takes place on 10-11 June 2017.
We discussed a number of issues around traffic, parking and anti-social behaviour in areas surrounding the park, and the measures that Parklife put in place to stop or minimise these.

Please don’t hesitate to get in touch with ideas or comments.

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