The Parklands Consortium Ltd have been selected by the Catton Park Trust Ltd

to present the Catton Park bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Over 120 members of the public attended this evening in the Church Hall

which was hosted by the Parklands Consortium Ltd

and was a presentation given by their director, Dr. Hazel Fryer.

In essence, it was a brief history of Catton Park together with a

discussion about the trees in the park.

Pictures from the public meeting in the Old Catton

Church Hall on 14th April 2005.

These photos were provided by www.oldcatton.com

Dr. Fryer stated that the Parklands Consortium had never been involved

with a scheme like Catton Park before.  Traditionally, their work involved

seeking lottery funds to upgrade existing public parks.

This project was unique for them in that it was a plan to convert private

land into a public park.

Dr. Fryer spent some time reviewing and explaining the many proposals

that were were being presented to the Heritage Lottery Fund.

These generally covered suggested ideas for the entrances to the park,

the various areas within the park, as well as the tree management

proposals.  It was stressed that at this stage, these were only proposals

and there was still a long way to go before anything was decided.

The Parklands Consortium would be putting their final proposal to the

Heritage Lottery Fund by the end of May 2005 and it is hoped that a

response will be forthcoming by September of this year.

Assuming support from the HLF was forthcoming, it is hoped

that work on the park could commence in the spring of 2006.

After that, there were words of support from local representatives

such as Mr Andrew Buxton (the principle landowner),

Stephen Osborn (Chairman of the Friends of Catton Park),

Paul Wright (Head Teacher of Church Street Middle School) and

Jan Wiggins (Head Teacher of the Hall School).

The head teachers both talked about the educational possibilities that

the park will provide for local children.

There then followed a series of questions from the public covering

aspects of the project such as fencing, lighting, public toilets,

motorbikes, path surfaces and car parking.

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