Ouseburn Parks Heritage Lottery Bid Update

At the June meeting of the Steering Group, Simon Green of bid-consultants, Southern Green, provided an update as follows:

Visitor Centre:

• Following advice from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), it was decided to make better use of the existing building – Millfield House – rather than build a new visitor’s centre

• The spaces will be reversed within the building with the café moving to the visitor room and the Rangers to the café area

• Architects and structural engineers have been working on designs

• There will be an additional floor over the old café space to accommodate the Rangers’ offices

• The Risi family is happy with the proposals

• We will be seeking further comments and guidance from the HLF with new designs

• It is proposed to ‘list’ Millfield House as part of the project

• The buildings within Pets Corner are to be improved for Park Keepers and for school visits

• Disability North, during their access audit, pointed out the difficulty of access over the cobbled courtyard

• The wall will be reduced in height to provide better views through to Pet’s Corner and into the Visitor Centre and café

• Talks have been held with the museum service to improve the education value of Pet’s Corner – perhaps by using nursery rhymes to develop characters for the animals and by using cameras linked into the visitor centre to watch wildlife in the Dene. This all links nicely with the Children’s Book in the Ouseburn Valley as well as the Hancock Museum.

• A walk-through aviary is planned

One of the points made during the consultation was that the management needed to be improved and made clearer. It is proposed within the project to appoint:

• A Project Manager – to oversee the whole project and keep to budget

• 3 additional Park Keepers from the grant with a further 2 to be funded by the council

• 1 Education Officer to oversee the interpretation work and continuing education element of the project

• In the long term, it is hoped to employ more Rangers and also to make better use of the existing Rangers so that the entire project area is covered

• It is also believed that an additional post of ‘Park Manager’ is needed as the skills required for Project Manager and Park Manager are quite different

There are still questions over the viability of the windmill part of the project (restoring the windmill in Armstrong Park and developing it as a viewing tower).

The bid was finalised during July and approval hoped for in January 2005. If the bid is successful, work will start on Phase 1 in 2007 while Phase 2 will follow in 2010.