Peterborough’s fantastic Nene Park has always been a winner for us but now it’s won a lotto grant of £2 million!
Following an 18-month development phase, Nene Park Trust has received confirmation that the National Lottery Heritage Fund has approved a grant of £1.965 million towards the 5-year delivery phase of Nene Park: Your Community Greenspace, a £3 million project which will bring improvements to Nene Park infrastructure and deliver a range of community events and opportunities for Peterborough and the region.
Matthew Bradbury, Nene Park Trust Chief Executive said, “We have a strong track record of providing a Park that is much loved by our community; but we want to take steps to ensure Nene Park is as inclusive as possible for all of Peterborough’s residents. This grant will allow us to implement a transformative and impactful project for the Trust and Nene Park. We are extremely grateful for this fantastic show of support for our work from The National Lottery Heritage Fund.”
Made possible by funds raised by players of the National Lottery, Your Community Greenspace is an ambitious and exciting project with three key themes:
Empowering and engaging our communities to help conserve the natural heritage of Nene Park.
Building bridges with the multi-cultural communities of Peterborough to make Ferry Meadows an inclusive community hub.
Improving physical and mental health and wellbeing through nurturing connections with nature and the outdoors.
Nene Park Trust is looking forward to delivering a range of exciting plans for the Park and for Peterborough over the next few years and will be recruiting additional staff to expand the team. This project will be far reaching; improving and transforming Nene Park to meet the needs of the many communities of the city and helping improve physical and mental health and wellbeing for all as we recover from Covid-19.
Throughout the development stage of the project, the Trust has been working with community groups and carrying out outreach across the city to find out how regularly groups access greenspace and what could be further provided to encourage under-represented and under-served groups access greenspace more regularly.
Now that the Trust has secured this funding they can begin to make some of the wider project plans a reality. This will include developing the activities and events programme, strengthening the volunteering offer at Nene Park, replacing Pontoon Bridge and refreshing the welcome area and toilets, improving transport opportunities and much more.