Wirral river park opening date set
Land management charity the Land Trust has appointed the Wirral Autistic Society to manage the Port Sunlight River Park in Bromborough, due to open on 12 August.
The park is being created on the former Bromborough landfill site. The 70-acre park will be part of the Wirral coastal path and will give access to the River Mersey and views of the Liverpool skyline.
A joint initiative between Newlands, the Forestry Commission and North West Development Agency granted £2.2m towards the creation of the park in 2012.
The park has also received funding from the England Woodland Grant Scheme, UK Waste Management which operated the former landfill, Biffa Waste Services, and additional land from Unilever.
Teams from WAS, made up of people with autism and their carers, will carry out day-to-day maintenance of the park. Work placements will also be offered to the society's Step into Work Plus students, who are matched with suitable placements across Wirral.
The first step for WAS will be to appoint a dedicated ranger for the park, to manage its maintenance and encourage community involvement.
Alison Whitehead, development manager of the Land Trust, said: "We are really pleased to be working with the Wirral Autistic Society at Port Sunlight River Park, they do lots of great work for people with autism and managing the park will help support this. They also run the nearby Bromborough Pool Garden Centre and have a very successful landscaping service, maintaining the grounds of local companies and schools, so they are ideally placed to manage the new park for the benefit of the local community."
Restoration work to create Port Sunlight River Park has been managed by the Land Trust with assistance from a number of partners including BIS, the Forestry Commission, Wirral Council, Gillespies, Unilever, Biffa Waste Services, Essar Oil, United Utilities and Port Sunlight Village Trust.
