In December 2006, The Cheltenham Borough Council (CBC) submitted a bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund for £50,000 as a Project Planning Grant (PPG). This is  to cover the cost of preparing a Stage I plan to be submitted later this year as the first step in applying for a substantial grant of up to £5,000,000 for the restoration, development and future management of the Pittville Park and surrounding green areas of the two Squares, Pittville Lawn and Crescent and Pittville Circus. The result of the initial PPG is expected very soon, in March. CBC is optimistic but the Stage I application faces very still opposition from other like projects throughout the UK. An extract from the PPG application can be found at:

http://www.friendsofpittville.org/docs/HLFProjectPlanningGrant20070110.pdf

The Friends would like to encourage the local community to play an active role in this bid for a grant and one way everyone can have a voice is to join the Friends group.

CBC now has the report from the consultants who were looking into ways to improve the Pump Room as a facility. The Chairman is in touch with the Cabinet on this, and other matters, and a meeting with the Leader of the Cabinet is being planned. Publication of the results of this consultative process is expected very shortly. 

We have been advised of a possible extension of the St Vincent’s Centre in the area currently used by Dunalley School as a wild life preserve, adjacent to the Park. It is very early in the process and there are no definitive plans. Three committee members are scheduled to visit St Vincent’s Centre by the time of publication of the newsletter. The board of trustees intends to keep the community involved the development of this project and is sensitive to the environmental and aesthetic issues involved with the location of the site.

At the Executive Committee meeting in January, minutes to be found in the website archives http://www.friendsofpittville.org/archive.aspx, all members were tasked with considering projects to improve the Park, suitable for the HLF bid consideration. One popular idea is to restore the bridge over the lower lake, destroyed by previous vandalism.

Local History

The Friends of Pittville are now liaising with the author of the book Pittville 1824 – 1860, Dr Steven Blake, to be able to include a short history of the Pittville Estate in our website. The Cheltenham Museum has also kindly loaned some old photographs for future inclusion in the gallery section.

A short history of Portland Square can also be found in the archives with, the kind permission of the author Mike Grindlay. http://www.friendsofpittville.org/docs/PortlandSquareandAlbertPlace.pdf

Friends Executive Committee Meeting - 24 October 2006

Apart from the bridge project mention on page 1, the Committee is also looking for ways to generate revenue towards the cost of any future project, either as part of the HLF bid or as an independently financed one. Do you have any fund raising experience? Would you be prepared to help with this? Contact us if you can help. 

Village Voice

The Chairman now writes a regular newsletter to the Gloucestershire Echo for inclusion in the Community News section. The contributions to date can also be found in the website archives, http://www.friendsofpittville.org/archive.aspx.

Photo Galleries

There are now 12 galleries covering the local area at www.friendsofpittville.org/gallery.aspx. Recently, two new slide shows on Winter in Pittville have been added.

Do you have any good pictures of the Pittville area? Email them to secretary@friendsofpittville.org (min size 1280 x 960px). I have only had one so far!

Membership Applications

An on-line membership application form can be downloaded from the website at www.friendsofpittville.org/docs/MembershipApplicationForm.pdf.  (See the link on the “Contact” page, www.friendsofpittville.org/contact.aspx,  under the heading “Membership”) and will also be distributed in the area shortly.  In the meantime, if you would like to know more, just send an email to enquiries@friendsofpittville.org.  Come and join the Friends and have a voice in the future of the Pittville Park and Estate.

Friends of Pittville Contacts:

Chairman      - chairman@friendsofpittville.org
Secretary       - secretary@friendsofpittville.org
Treasurer       - treasurer@friendsofpittville.org
Enquiries       - enquiries@friendsofpittville.org