Friends group swings in to save city park

Published on Monday 11 February 2008 09:24

A RUN-DOWN city park is set for a major revamp after a "friends group" was formed to address its worsening problems.

The Friends of Montgomery Street Park want to see up to 10,000 worth of improvements, paid for by grants and community fundraising.

Plans include removing ScottishPower transformers, cleaning up graffiti and improving the children's play area, which is often strewn with broken glass.

A questionnaire about the park – which used to include two bowling greens – has been issued to local people and flyers distributed around the area.

A spokesman for the group said: "Our aim is to make Montgomery Street Park a better place, a place where everyone could enjoy spending time playing."

One local resident, who regularly takes her two-year-old daughter to the park, said the facilities had become noticeably more run down in the past two years.

She said: "The slides and roundabout are covered in graffiti and the swings are always wrapped around the top bar."

The campaign is similar to a project at nearby Dalmeny Street Park, which also has a friends group to protect its interests and carry out improvement and maintenance work on top of that already done by the council.

The park, which local residents say is a favourite spot for underage drinkers, is now the subject of plans for a revamp.

The friends group is to send a consultation form to 1300 local people to gauge opinion on how to move forward, and is also set to apply to the council for money after a lottery grant was turned down.

Stewart Blaik, chairman of Leith Central Community Council, said the news of a similar group being started for Montgomery Street Park was fantastic for the community.

He said: "To have two parks in the area improved would be wonderful. It's great to see people putting in their own time to addressing these issues."

A spokesman for Greener Leith, the organisation committed to improving the environment and cleanliness of the area's streets and green spaces, said: "It's really hard for groups to be able to get extra funding to improve parks unless they can prove that their projects have been developed to take account of local people's views. So if you live nearby, you can help out by downloading the questionnaire from their website."

&#149 Go to http//brunswick-greene.com to take part in the survey.

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