Notices from Friends of Marple Memorial Park
A section for notices and statements that we wish to share with the local community.
The Friends of Marple Memorial Park were delighted to receive a donation recently from TMT.
TMT are a local contractor who were engaged by Stockport Council to refurbish the inside of Hollins House ready for its new occupants. The council require all contractors to include something of "social value" as part of their work and TMT decided a donation to the Friends was the best and most appropriate thing they could do. They offered a very welcome sum of £500 but in the event, Tom Traynor the MD decided to double this to a superb £1,000 as they value the local area and wanted to help the park group even more.
Pictured here is Malcolm receiving a cheque from Mike Houghton, TMT Health & Safety Manager (far left) along with colleagues from TMT. Malcolm said, "We are due to renew some of our older tools and will need more plants for the spring and summer, so this will be very timely for us. We are really grateful to get such a magnificent donation".
Triple Awards for Friends of Memorial Park!
Friends of Marple Memorial Park were pleased to welcome Mark and Gill Whittaker back to the park to receive three certificates and prizes in the 2024 Stockport Greenspace Volunteer Awards. They were presented by Councillor Grace Baynham, Cabinet Member for Parks, Highways & Transport Services, on Bank Holiday Monday 27th May.
Marple Community Hub scheme
Comments on new Hub site layout published February 2024
The following comments on the updated Community Hub site layout presented at a Key Stakeholder Meeting on 8 February 2024 were submitted to Stockport Council on 19 February, along with a response to their questions about access. We encouraged the council to take these onboard before making their planning application.
Although Friends of Marple Memorial Park are thankful that many of the comments we made in our Response to the September 2023 Consultation have been incorporated into the updated scheme (and it is now far better for that) sadly the detailed engagement we had hoped for, and were led to expect, just hasn't happened.
A Note for the Record was submitted with the new comments explaining our disappointment at not being treated in the way we feel we deserve.
Future of Friends of the Park
Sadly our Chairman Mark Whittaker and his wife Gill (head gardener and the real boss) will be winding down their involvement in Friends of the Park over the next two to three months after 20+ years at the helm. This is primarily driven by family and health matters necessitating a reassessment of priorities, but a number of other frustrating park-related issues have influenced this decision too. You can read more about this in the minutes of our last meeting held on 8 February 2024.
We are hopeful that Friends of the Park will be able to continue without Mark and Gill but it will be a formidable challenge to operate at the same level and it's likely that the group's activities will need to be scaled back to just focus on the core activities of looking after the flowerbeds, gardens and benches, at least in the short term until new leaders find their feet.
Would you like to get involved in running the group?
In order to remain active the group will need a mix of existing volunteers prepared to step-up and new volunteers who would like to get involved in running the group.
A small committee of at least 5 people, including the roles of Chairman, Treasurer and Secretary will be needed for the group to continue.
The committee currently meets monthly in the library but this could be scaled down in the future.
We will also need extra volunteers prepared to lead the task days and cover formalities required by the council to support us with their insurance etc. To lead task days volunteers must be "Task Leader Trained" by the council. We have a few trained volunteers already but training is available for new or existing volunteers wishing to get involved in this way.
Please don't be put off by the thought of council training, it only takes a day, and is only required for those leading the task days.
Although gardening expertise is useful, it is not essential and volunteers can do as much or as little as they wish.
So if you are interested in getting involved in the running of Friends of the Park please use our contact form to get in touch.
Response from Friends of Marple Memorial Park
This page presents the history of previous consultations and exchanges between Friends of the Park and the council on the Marple Community Hub scheme going back as far as January 2019. It also includes a brief update on recent developments followed by our full comments on the scheme as presented for consultation on 4 September 2023.
We finish with a round-up of suggestions of how you may wish to support us in your own personal responses to the consultation.
We hope you can take the time to read and understand everything we are saying but there are a couple of quick-link shortcuts for those of you with less time.