Croydon Council tries again for Wandle Park lottery funding (From Croydon Guardian)

Croydon Council tries again for Wandle Park lottery funding

3:20pm Tuesday 19th May 2009 in Local news

Croydon Council and the Friends of Wandle Park are trying to secure lottery funding for the restoration of the park.

The friends, along with the council, are resubmitting a funding bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund after being asked to carry out more work on the feasibility of returning the Wandle River to the surface.

They had hoped the park would receive funds after its success in Mayor of London Boris Johnson’s park scheme in March, when locals voted for the park to get £400,000 for improvements.

However, competition for Heritage Lottery funding was fierce, with five times more money being sought than was actually available.

The judging committee praised the Croydon bid, the centrepiece of which was the restoration of the River Wandle and an adjoining lake.

The judges described it as “visionary” and “having impressive community engagement”.

Mark Thomas, chairman of the Friends of Wandle Park, said: “Naturally, we are disappointed with the result after all the work we put into the application.

"However, the work is not lost.

"We’ve got a well-developed project with lots of public support.

“We just need to address the technicalities of river restoration in more detail and, once we’ve done this, we should stand a really good chance when we submit again.”

Pauline Scott-Garrett, the council’s director of culture and sport, said: “The encouraging feedback from the Lottery fund has provided us with fresh impetus to strengthen our relationship with the Environment Agency and progress river restoration feasibility work as quickly as possible.

“Our success in the Mayor of London’s scheme, combined with the £1m Section 106 funding from the neighbouring Barratt Homes development scheme, means that we already have a total of £1.4m funding for Wandle Park.

"So we already know we will be able to achieve great things.

“We strongly hope we will be successful when we next submit a bid for lottery funding and that we will be able to realise the council and the community’s long-term ambition for river restoration in Wandle Park and Croydon’s town centre.”

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