Today the Cambridge Preservation Society and South Cambridgeshire District Council held a workshop at Wandlebury to try to help the council with the process of finding someone to take on the Park. Among those represented were Cambridgeshire Horizons, Natural England, the National Trust, the Wildlife Trust, the Magog Trust, the Keystone Trust, the Friends of Milton Country Park, the Land Restoration Trust, Cambridge Sports Lakes, Red2Green, Cambridge Mencap, and Cambridge City, Cambridgeshire County and Milton Parish councils. The Campaign was also there.

Assembling outside for a press photo

The good news is that everyone there was very keen to see the Park stay open.

The bad news is that none of them appear to be willing to bid to run the Park on the terms SCDC are now proposing to offer.

The problem is simple: there is a significant gap between the income which can be generated by the Park and the cost of running it, especially running it in the way SCDC expect it to be run. At the workshop SCDC said they were proposing a "dowry", a one off payment towards bridging this gap, but there would be nothing more after that. The amount people are looking for in terms of a dowry is at least £2.5million. SCDC simply don't have that sort of money.

The upshot of all of this is that everyone has now gone away to think over what was said today and to then write to SCDC expressing terms on which they would be willing to take on the Park, if there are any.

The Campaign will also be writing with our thoughts.

Written: 29/03/07

[Newer]

[Older]

Our news is also available as an RSS feed