Welcome to Friends of Pittville
The aim of the Friends of Pittville is to promote greater community involvement in the enjoyment, protection, future restoration and renewal of Pittville Park and Estate,
and, in so doing, support Cheltenham Borough Council in pursuing a Heritage Lottery Fund grant under the Parks for People Program. Funding from HLF would go towards an audience development plan, a conservation management plan, and a maintenance management plan.
Plans to bid for Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) monies to restore Pittville Park and
Estate began in earnest in 2002, when the Cheltenham Borough Council (CBC) Cabinet
endorsed a proposal to "Prepare a Feasibility study and Master plan for the restoration
of Pittville Park". The HLF are extremely keen to see the involvement
of local people in projects such as this. The Friends of Pittville Group (FoP)
has, therefore, been playing an important and active role in supporting this project, and members of the group have been sitting on the Working Groups involved in the process, contributing
both information and ideas to the development of the application.
Since the inception of the Feasibility Study, the Landscape Agency Consultants have been preparing a Stage 1 application to the HLF under their Parks for People funding programme. Community First, consultants specialising in consultations with community, have been working with the CBC to prepare an audience development plan. The Stage 1 application calls for a wide range of information including the preparation of plans covering Audience Development, Conservation Management, Volunteer/Employee Training and 10 year Management and Maintenance.
Current State of Play
The Cabinet of the CBC has fully endorsed the plan to make a submission to the HLF at a level of £3,000,000, with a further commitment from CBC of £1,000,000 from own funds. The process has now reached second draft stage of the "Master Plan" and CBC has distributed thousands of leaflets showing the "Plan", including more than two thousand delivered by Friends of Pittville along with the current newsletter. This leaflet also has a survey on it for feedback from the public at large. If you have a copy of this leaflet, please complete the short survey and return it as directed. The final "game plan" from the Landscape Agency, consultants for the project, should be ready in the near future.