Community comes together to spruce up revamped Walton Park and playground

Locals recently dug in to help South Ribble Borough Council staff with planting up the attraction in Walton Park.

Now there are ambitions to turn the newly-greened area into one of the most biodiverse spaces in the district - using bug hotels and features to attract bees.

It is all a far cry from the desolate facility that stood at the centre of the community, off Bellis Way, just two years ago.

Back then, the 30-year lifespan of the site was beginning to show - and an uninviting, solitary swing was all that remained to entertain young residents. Surrounding green space was similarly unattractive, punctuated with rotting benches and bollards.

That all changed back in May 2021, when the fruits of a £30,000 investment from the borough council - and the same amount in a grant from the Lancashire Environmental Fund - saw a raft of new kit installed and a revamp of the wider area in which the playground sits.

More than a year on, and locals are still working to perfect their new park - with the Friends of Walton Park group recently joining forces with council staff on a planting mission - bringing to life a design dreamt up by one of the authority’s officers..

Walton-le-Dale West ward councillor Matt Campbell said that the results will only serve to make the site even more popular than it had already become - with both children and adults alike.

“It’s just such a big improvement - a usable space and a nice place for people to come and relax and have a chat with each other. It’s busy most of the time, whereas before, I think people avoided it more than anything.

“There is no [other] real community space here, so we can start using this, especially when the weather’s nice.

“It looks brilliant - and we’re getting a lot of positive comments from residents and people from further afield who are coming to visit the playground with their children,” Cllr Campbell added.

But before locals bask in the glory of what they have helped create, there is just one more job to do next month.

“We just need to paint the fence around the perimeter - and we’re looking for volunteers for that. It’s the original metal fence, but it’s peeling - it just needs a lick of paint and it’ll look a lot better.”

“We’re also going to be getting some bug hotels and posts to attract solitary bees. And there are other things happening elsewhere in the area, because we want to make Walton-le-Dale the biodiversity capital of the borough.”

With their new bucolic haven at the centre of the community, the first piece in that puzzle is just about complete.