As you know, we put the draft plan out for public consultation in February/March.  The responses from the initial public consultation have now been collated by the Environment and Community Projects Team at Lancashire County Council.   We’ll post the results tomorrow, but just wanted to comment first on the level of response we received.

There are over 3,000 households in the immediate Conway Park catchment area (we know because we hand-posted Christmas cards out to them all!).  When we were out and about with the plans, we had lots of positive comments and it seemed loads of people knew about the planned improvements and of the Friends group.  We’ve been thanked endlessly for the work we have done so far and congratulated on getting the improvements to the brook pathway done in such a short period of time.

The idea behind the public consultation process for the draft plan was to ask the community to feedback their thoughts on intended park improvements by completing a questionnaire.  This they could do either by filling out a paper form and returning it, or else going online and doing it.  It was to find out what you as a community LIKED about the plans and what you DIDN’T LIKE.

However, only 26 paper surveys and 36 online surveys were completed!  We’re not quite sure what to make of this.   Is it because you like the plans so just want to leave it to us because you think we’re doing a good job?  Is it because you’ve no interest in the park at all?  Did you intend to do the questionnaire but just not get around to it?

Obviously, the feedback we did receive will be incredibly useful to progress the plans and will now be passed back to the landscape architects at Preston City Council for amendments to the plans.  But it would have been so much better if more of the community had become involved so we know if we are definitely on the right track.

The revised plans will come back out for public consultation in a couple of months time.  PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE take the time to feedback your thoughts at this time.    If you don’t, we can’t consider your views.   Even if you like it all, be sure to tell us.  ALSO, the more community involvement we have, the easier it will be to access various funding avenues!  If we can show that the community WANTS these plans to go ahead, with the help of the Council, we can apply for a variety of grants and funding pools.

We really need your help to get these improvements made.  Please get involved when the revised plan comes out.   Many thanks, from The Friends of Conway Park Committee Members.