King’s Gardens Community News
May 2013 King’s Gardens are a beautiful town centre park in Southport on the Promenade. The physical restoration is well underway and if you take a visit to the gardens you are sure to fall in love with what you see. The Friends of King’s Gardens have been recording the restoration through facebook (Friends of Kings Gardens Southport) and on twitter (@kingsgardenssp), so if you enjoy social networking why not follow them! If you are interested is supporting the project, there are lots of ways you can get involved. • Maybe you are good at promoting? We want to encourage people to come to King’s Gardens. Do you have any ideas on how we can do this? Would you like to offer your skills by volunteering some time to support it? • Are you part of a club or group who would like to use the gardens for their activity?
• Are you interested in history? You could help to develop a guided tour or help in the development of the visitor information centre. • Are you interested in gardening? If so you can join the garden group - look out for planting workshops starting in September/October 2013.
These are just a few ideas. We’re sure you’ll have plenty more. King’s Gardens would benefit from your involvement and what a fantastic project this is to be involved in. For further information please contact jane.little-smith@sefton.gov.uk or friendsofkingsgardens@gmail.com or telephone Sefton Council on 0151 934 2421.
The Works
The renovation works at the park are being carried out by The Casey Group Ltd.
Sefton Council have worked hard over the last few years securing funding from theHeritage Lottery Fund for the restoration of the park. Sefton Council, who manage the site, were successful in securing £5.5 million to pay for these works with the majority coming from the HLF under their Parks for People programme.
Casey have an impressive reputation in park renovation, having carried out 14 Heritage Lottery funded park restorations over the past 5 years. Last year they won the top British Association of Landscape Industries Award for the work they carried out at Lichfield Park in Staffordshire. So you know the park is in great hands!
The Council carried out extensive research with local people and visitors to the gardens, which helped to shape and support both stages of the bidding process. We all hope you enjoy King’s Gardens!
In this newsletter - the first of three over the restoration project - Casey will keep you informed of progress. But go ahead and visit the park to see it for yourself! Don’t forget to check out the protective hoardings around the Casey site compound. They show how the park looked in its heyday, along with proposals for the new design.