Opening of Springfield Park’s Jubilee room

The Mayor, Cllr. James Gartside cuts the ribbon at the Springfield Park Jubilee room

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Springfield Park showed off their new Jubilee room on Saturday 9 June. The visitors included the Mayor and Mayoress and local guides and brownies.

As part of the Friends of Springfield Park's (FoSP) £50,000 Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) funding, a room within the old stone coaching barn has been completely refurbished. This revamped room has been coined ‘The Jubilee Room’ and will be available for local groups to hire out, in order to accommodate around 30 young people at a time.

The room will largely be used for school groups who take educational trips into the park and for meetings and presentations; as it will provide them with facilities such as a mini kitchen, disabled toilets and notice boards. Advance bookings of the room will need to be made, which eventually will be accessible online.

FoSP Liaison, Dave Logan and his team spent the day setting up a marquee for the event; however, they struggled to prevent it from blowing away in the blustery weather conditions. This was a perfect opportunity to put the new facilities into practise, instead of celebrating the opening of a new room in a marquee, all of the attendees celebrated in the room itself!

Mr Logan said: “It created a friendly, close atmosphere and resulted in an absolutely brilliant day! We were delighted and honoured that the Mayor and Mayoress could join us for our celebrations.”

The Mayor, Cllr. James Gartside and his Mayoress, Cllr Jane Gartside took out a substantial amount of time from their busy schedule in order to attend an official red carpet, ribbon cutting ceremony at the park. The Mayor praised all those involved for making tremendous improvements at the park, many of whom were guests at the opening. They were accompanied by appropriate council officers and councillors, plus around 40 additional people who were also responsible for bringing this refurbishment about.

The park also features facilities for brownies and guides who come from other areas to stay outdoors overnight and the Rochdale Olympic Gymnastic Club reside in the park. After his tour of these facilities, the Mayor appeared impressed and chatted to all of the brownies and guides that were present.

The HLF made the extensive alterations to the old stone barn possible, which were originally the changing rooms for Milton FC. HLF funding also enabled the renovation of a pedestrian bridge and footpaths throughout the park. Mr Logan added: “HLF were represented by Rebecca Archer and many thanks were given to her on the day, to emphasise how critical their financial support has been to the project.”

In the last two years, a team has raised £100, 000 which has been spent on various projects within the park. They do not want to stop here; Friends of Springfield Park want their next project to be a café!

Find out more about the Friends of Springfield Park:

Email: springfieldpark2009@hotmail.co.uk

Web Site: www.rochdaleonline.co.uk/sites/friends-of-springfield-park