Photos from the Park Fun Day in Craighalbert Quarry ( www.cumbernauldcommunitypark.org.uk)

 Craigmarloch Community Council’s bid to revive the Cumbernauld Community Park has now developed into a joint initiative with North Lanarkshire Council. The launch of the Park with a Fun day on 1 June 2008 is one of a number of projects which the separately constituted Friends of the Park are actively working on with the Council, local schools and with organisations like the Cumbernauld Cultural Forum. The Launch day attracted around 7,500 people and despite the rain in the last hour was a complete vindication of the efforts of our Community Council and the wider group of some 400 Friends of the Park. Children were heard comparing their first view of the Park as “Just like Disneyland!” Craigmarloch Community Council ran the tea tent but groups and community councils across the town took part and contributed time and energy to make the day one of the best outdoor events in Cumbernauld in 2008.

There was an Airsoft rifle range, paintball, a weapons display from ClanRanald and a range of gentler arts and crafts from the Cultural Forum. There were burgers, ice cream, chocolate, cakes, free Irn Bru from the Irn Bru bus and water donated by Highland Spring. The stage hosted choirs, singers, Japanese Demon Drummers, Pipers, a Karate display and at the end a rock group. It was a great disappointment that the rain made the electrics dangerous and called an end to the stage acts. Maybe next year we can get Sound Cradle back and end the show more like “T in the Park” rather than “Tea in the Quarry”. None the less it was a great day out for Cumbernauld and one to be repeated next year.

Work tenders are now out for the surfacing of the 3 kilometres of paths through the Park using WIAT (Woodlands In and Around Towns) funding of £220,000 already secured. Another £10,000 has been awarded by the Lottery’s BBC Breathing Places initiative, which will be matched by the Council, allowing the area between Carrickstone and the joint schools campus to be regenerated with a pond, boardwalk, new woodlands and a wild flower meadow. Work is also being done to create a path from Craighalbert to the Craigmarloch Neighbourhood Centre (Tesco) which will be suitable for wheelchair users as well as providing a route to the schools and a link in the Cumbernauld Core Path network.

The next committee meeting of the Friends is at the end of the month when plans and the events schedule for the year ahead in the Park will kick off again. For more information and a look at the full submission into the new Local Plan and all the ideas suggested for the Park go to www.cumbernauldcommunitypark.org.uk