St.James' Park - Future Developments
Heritage Lottery Fund Grant
| Click on any of the plans below to see a larger picture. |
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Cracknell's plans |
Updated: 5th September 2011
FoSJP has great plans for the Park! On 15th October 2009, it was announced that our second stage bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) had been successful, releasing a total of £1.5 million to make significant improvements to the Park and its facilities.
What's Happened So Far?
FoSJP submitted a pre-application to the HLF and was successful in winning a grant to pay for a full bid to win further funds. This grant allowed us to employ Parklife[1], a consultancy firm which prepared a proposal to submit to the HLF to obtain large-scale funding for the development of the Park.
Parklife shared some very exciting proposals with us; it was good to see that they listened to us all about what we'd like at St.James' Park. Parklife's plans were submitted to the HLF in Spring 2008, and in October 2008 the results were announced - our application for a full-scale bid had been successful!
| The Park was awarded £64,500 to develop plans for an improvement scheme totalling £1.5 million, including a ring-fenced £400,000 from Southampton City Council. |
Parklife became Cracknell in July 2008, and worked on updated plans (on the right of this page) for the Park which were submitted to the Heritage Lottery Fund in May 2009, as part of the second stage of our application.
| On 15th October 2009, it was officially announced that our second stage bid had been successful! |
Many thanks for this must go to our partners, Southampton City Council, but also to all of you who have helped and supported us so far.
Park visitors celebrate the good news! |
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Visit our Press Reports page for links to newspaper articles, radio interviews, and a BBC News website video related to this news. |
What Will Be The Result?
The Park will be restored and improved for the whole community to continue to enjoy, including:
- Refurbishing the Kiosk building, which is a former Air Raid Precautions warden shelter, to provide a café, a community room, and toilets;
- Improving the provision of formal and informal play, using designs by local children and providing features for all ages;
- Refurbishing the popular tennis courts;
- Improving access to the Park by creating two new entrances and refurbishing existing entrances;
- Enhancing the Park's biodiversity with botanical and scenic walks.
| [1] | Other than the name, there is no connection between ParkLife Community Interest Company, established by FoSJP in November 2010 to run the new café and community room, and the former Parklife consultancy that became Cracknell in July 2008. |
Restoration & Improvement Works
Updated: 5th September 2011
In February 2010, Southampton City Council's framework of contractors was
invited to tender quotes for implementing the development plans. After
assessing both price and quality of the submitted tenders, in May 2010
the contract for the capital works to restore and improve St.James'
Park was awarded to Graham
Moyse Contractors Ltd. (GMC) of Fareham.
GMC moved into the Park on 28th June 2010, and after setting up their site compound and access routes, started development work on 12th July 2010 as directed by Cracknell and monitored by Southampton City Council, FoSJP, and the Heritage Lottery Fund.
St.James' Park officially re‑opened, 16th July 2011
Southampton City Council and FoSJP decided to keep the Playground and the Building, including the Kiosk, open throughout Summer 2010 to minimise disruption to Park users; these areas were then released to GMC on 6th September 2010.
The Park was re‑opened to the public on 6th July 2011, and the ParkLife Café opened for business shortly afterwards on 15th July.
The Mayor of Southampton officially declared the new Park to be open at a special ribbon‑cutting ceremony held during FoSJP's Play in the Park! event on 16th July 2011.
Shirley Heritage Project
Updated: 5th September 2011
The HLF is also funding research into the history of the Park through FoSJP's Shirley Heritage Project. We've already held two series of public history talks, with a third series planned, and we're in the process of recording people's experiences of the Park over the years. We'll be providing information about the history of the Park in the new building, writing a book on the Park's history, and much more.
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Visit our Shirley Heritage Project page to find out more about its many activities. |
Site location: Home > Future Developments
