Markeaton Park and the Mundy Play Centre Project 2012 - Assignment Example

Table of contents Introduction........................................................................................................ 2 Aims and objectives........................................................................................... 2 Project proposals................................................................................................ 3 Proposal 1............................................................................................. 4 Proposal 2............................................................................................. 4 Proposal 3............................................................................................. 4 Proposal 4............................................................................................. 5 Proposal 5............................................................................................. 6 Evidence of need and reasons supporting proposals........................................ 6 Heritage Lottery Fund Outcomes..................................................................... 8 Programs of works and timescales................................................................... 9 Conclusion....................................................................................................... 10 Bibliography.................................................................................................... 11 Introduction Markeaton Park in Derby village is owned by the Derby City Council’s Department of Leisure services. It receives more than one million visitors every year. In the whole of East Midlands it is the most visited area. It covers an area of 207 acres. The park is under the management of the Derby City Council’s Leisure services Department. This park is popular in there area but has major problems. Because of the neglect it has received from the Derby City Council for many years, there is a visible decline in many of its facilities, spaces and landscape. This state makes it hard for many of the people visiting the park to enjoy their visits. The quality of the park has gone down considerably and the number of visitors to the park has been observed to dwindle. In order to stop the deterioration in the facilities of the park the council made use of the Parks for people program by placing a bid with the Heritage Lottery Fund (Manuvhai 2011, 77). Consequently, the council received a state one pass that will enable it get a grant of £2.4 million for project development in specific areas of the park. The project will not address all the problems being experienced at the park. However the investment is expected to greatly improve the park (Manning 2009). The bid placed by the council will carter for capital works aimed at improving and restoring the landscape and infrastructure of the park. This management report presents a plan for the renovation of the park. The plan discusses the aims and objectives, project proposals, support for the proposals, time scales and work programs. Aims and objectives Markeaton Park is actually the most popular in the whole of Derby. However the decline in the recreational opportunities, facilities and the landscape has dealt a blow to its reputation. This project is designed to deal with the gradual decline and develop the park so that its quality can go up, raise the number of visitors and enhance their experience. The major objective is to improve and maintain the park as a destination for visitors and the best park in Derby. The project also hopes to make use of different methods to interpret the park’s historical elements (Manning 2007, 45). This will ensure that people understand the changes that have taken place in the park’s facilities and uses with passing time. It is also expected that the project will enhance the utilization of the historic; landscape so that present and future use of facilities may be offered to reduce pressure on the historic features. It will maintain the many recreational facilities that serve all ages so that many more people can be able to use them. The community participation in the management, use and maintenance of the park will also be developed (Institute of Park and Recreation Administration (Great Britain) 1974, 110). The operations strategy for Markeaton Park and the Mundy Play Centre is aimed at bringing the park back to its former glory before it was neglected. It will accomplish a number on developments in the park to stop the decline being experienced at the moment. This will involve major works to improve the landscape of the park as well as the park’s physical infrastructure. Even though the project will not carter for all the facilities and areas in the park, it will focus on some of the most significant facilities (Kerzner 2009, 210).  The project will aim at upgrading these facilities and expanding some of them so that the park can have a facelift. With this having been done the reconstruction of the park has the objectives of increasing the number of people visiting the park, conserving and improving on the park’s heritage value, raising the number of volunteers working at the park, improving the maintenance and management of the park and finally improving training and skills about parks by way of training and learning (King, Lambert, Gatti 2008, 32).  Project proposals The project has a number of proposals which when implemented will greatly improve the outlook and value of the park. As mentioned above the project will aim at upgrading specific areas of the park which have deteriorated but are of significant value to the park. These areas will be given priority since they are very important as attractions or as facilities frequented by the visitors of the park (Low, Taplin, Scheld 2005, 90). Proposal 1: Upgrading of the Mundy Play Centre Mundy Play Centre is an important attraction for people coming to the park and money should be invested in it to improve the range and standard of facilities currently available. Work will done so that the facility can be one that people can use freely. The equipped area of the play centre will be relocated so that the streamside can be opened up. When this relocation is done more natural features for play will be brought in. These will carter for children of all ages (King, Lambert, Gatti 2008, 231).  Proposal 2: Renovation of the main entry leading to the car park This entrance used to connect the walled gardens and the stables with the east village. Currently the road is very wide and its condition is not pleasing. People such as the disabled use it as parking space. Work should be done on this area so that it becomes more attractive to people visiting the park. The road should be repaired and surface dressed. The paved path should be removed next to the herbaceous border. The parking will be moved across the road and a good path made in the place that is currently used as parking space. Removal of the conifer trees will also be necessary to open view space for the border. The main entry will be made wider and resurfaced with durable material with lawns of grass and flowers on the sides (Folens Publishers 1995, 87). Proposal 3: Improving the accessibility of the park There is need to improve the accessibility to certain historic elements within the park. Certain historic routes will have to be restored. Accessibility will also be improved to enhance circulation so that the use and exploration of the features within the park can be increased. Access within the park is currently a huge issue because the current paths are in a bad state, they are inadequate and certain parts have no points of entry. This problem is felt especially by users who are disabled and elderly. In this project it is proposed that the current path network be improved upon and more entrance points and circular paths be created. Many of the current paths were in the 18th Century Park and some of them existed before it was laid out. Most of these paths have to be resurfaced and repaired since they will all be retained (Folens Publishers 1995, 111). There will be a circular route created to go round all of the park’s perimeter areas. This will create a nature trail in some parts not known to people. With this, visitors will be able to access and interpret certain historic features like the medieval road, Bonnie Prince Charlie route, ridge and furrow and the ice house. The resurfacing of the parks will be done in a manner that they have natural bound gravel. This will ensure that the impact on land and vegetation is reduced. A new path will be reinstated in the place where a carriage way formerly existed connecting the main hall with the entrance lodge. Through this path visitors will get to the lakeside. They will also access the park via this path from Markeaton Lane (Burnap 2010, 10).  Proposal 4: Improvement of the park’s spaces and stable court yard. The stable courtyard is a space that is underutilized, has a car park within it and its fencing is not attractive. The proposition for this space is that it should be improved to make its use more flexible space that can accommodate many activities at a time such as exhibitions, displays and outdoor performances (Burnap 2010, 75).By this there will be an increase in the various activities carried out in the park. Extraneous elements should be removed and simple paving be used to resurface the area. There will be new lighting that will be fixed to make it possible for people to use the spaces in the evenings. The stables serve as a craft village, rooms for dressing and as public toilets. Changing rooms are very remote and their standards are very archaic. The extension on the changing rooms will be demolished and the buildings will be restored and converted to new use. They will have an education room or interpretation room and another room for the ranger. The remaining spaces will be turned into craft outlet. A new block with public toilets will be constructed in the courtyard in a place that is more accessible and can meet existing environmental regulations. The toilet units in use at the moment will be turned into another craft unit (Burnap 2010, 65). The areas occupied by aquatic habitats will also be considered since they have also degenerated. These resources have lost their aesthetic value because of the many weeds growing in them. The water resources are also habitats of attractive animals such as fish that visitors would like to watch and even catch for sport. Boat riding on the water has also been hampered because of the poor state of the water (King, Lambert, Gatti, 2008, 41).  Proposal 5: Preservation and conservation of historic elements within the parkland The historical landscape of the park is to be retained, repaired and restored. The same will also be done for these structures, buildings and other features such as built core, the parkland around them, water features, trees and woodlands and the parkland’s historic view from Markeaton Hall. There are several buildings and sites within the park that can be termed as historic. The orangery acts as a cafe within the park. It will be refurbished and left on its own as a historical site without any business or activities that can contribute to its degeneration. The cafe operations within the orangery will be stopped and a different facility sought for that. The orangery will be preserved as a historic site (Low, Taplin, Scheld 2005, 63). Evidence of need and reasons supporting the proposals The Markeaton Park project is necessary because the state of the park is pathetic. All the facilities have been in use for many years with no conservation and proper maintenance. This has led to a decline in the park’s recreational centres, spaces and facilities. The park has so many different attractions and recreational facilities besides the wonderful sporting facilities. Although it is an important destination as such, infrastructure in Markeaton Park has not been receiving enough attention in terms of investment (Manning 2009, 67). This has led to degeneration in the facilities of the park. Many people visiting the park never get satisfied with what the park has to offer. Nevertheless the park is still popular. There are many challenges that the park needs to overcome if the decline being experience is to be stopped. Some of the problems at the park include deterioration of the historic fabric of the park like the listed orangery and the presence of spaces not designed well like the stable courtyard. The number of visitors coming to the park has gone down tremendously. The number of facilities available to visitors has gone down and many of them are unwilling to pay for poor quality attractions and facilities. Some private concessions in the park do not open regularly and this leaves the visitors in a confused state (Low, Taplin, Scheld 2005, 23). The budget of the park is gradually going down and this makes maintenance and management of the park a very difficult task. The result is that staff has been reduced and some of the facilities have been closed down and the opening times of some have also been reduced. The park gets a lot of pressure from people coming to do main city events (Manning 2009, 97). The council has slackened in its care of the park and this is evident from the observable fall in the standards of horticulture and features like bedding and herbaceous borders. Visitors do not have a good experience as they enter the park especially from A38 as they head for the car park. The park is faced with the challenge of protecting and improving upon its natural and historic fabric. It also seeks to increase the number of visitors, stop the decline and improve on the accessibility of the park as well (Ontario Parks 2005, 178).  Heritage Lottery Fund outcomes The range of audiences visiting and using the park will be increased first by the facelift that will be given out to the park. Upgrading of the facilities and spaces within the park alone has the capacity to attract more people to the park. The park will also be advertised through the media with all the changes that will have been made. Many more people will be persuaded through these adverts to visit the park since most of its facilities will have been redone Folens Publishers 1995, 12). The heritage value of Markeaton Park will be conserved and enhanced by the maintenance of the old sites and buildings within the park. These buildings will be brought back to shape through renovation depending on the state of dilapidation and set apart for viewing by the visitors interested in them. Places like the neglected spaces, the stable courtyard and the listed orangery will be upgraded and maintenance work carried out on them regularly to prevent them from decline. Herbaceous beddings and borders will be restored and maintained alongside other horticultural features (Burnap 2010, 116). Increasing the range of volunteers participating in the park will require that the Derby villagers be invited to partner in the park. This will be done through advertisements in the media and community gatherings organized by the Derby City Council authorities. The local media will also be used to reach out to other people outside of Derby village. These efforts will also be targeted at other community based groups that are involved in conservation (Burnap 2010, 79).  The Derby City council will have to sponsor learning and training about parks through various seminars targeting the communities around the parks. It can also organize various sporting activities with the theme of conserving the parks. These events should have people being invited from far and wide to take part. In such places pamphlets should be printed and issued out to people. These pamphlets should carry messages about the conservation and maintenance of these parks together with their importance to the community and the entire society (Eagles, McCool 2002, 231). Another strategy could be the publication of monthly magazines to educate people on various issues about parks. One major improvement to the management and maintenance of the park will be the establishment of a carrying capacity for the visitors that will be used to ensure that the resources at the park are preserved and that the visitors are given an experience of high quality. Overflow parking will be reduced by the introduction of a shuttle service that will help ensure reduced traffic congestion since the number of visitors is expected to rise. Shuttles will enhance effective transportation of visitors within the park especially in areas where the roads are wide. The internal and external visitor information program will be improved so that more visitors can be attracted to the park. Welcome centres outside the park will be used to give information to those visitors having plans to visit the park (Books Llc, 2010, 57). Programme of works and time scales The implementation of the entire project is expected to be complete within one year. All the five proposals discussed in this report will be implemented in these two years. Specific parts under renovation will be closed to visitors at different times. In the first 2 months, efforts will be focused on the main entrance to the park. The entrance is expected to be complete in less than two months. Upon its completion, focus will be shifted to accessibility inside the park. This will see the paths redone based on their needs (Kerzner 2009, 210).  This exercise will take 3 months because of the bad state of these paths. The Mundy Play Centre will be the next on the line but work on this facility will coincide with other work that will be started on the spaces and the stable courtyard. Work on the Mundy Play Centre will take between four months and five months. This is expected to take long because the facility will be moved to another place and more natural features will be introduced. The work on the stable court yard will take 3 months. It will begin 2 months after the relocation of the Mundy Play Centre has started. The last exercise will involve work on the historic elements within the park among them the listed orangery. Work on these sites is expected to take one and a half months after which they will be opened to the public (Kerzner 2009, 210).  Conclusion In this management report a sustainable plan for the upgrading of Markeaton Park has been outlined. The park was neglected for too long by the Derby City Council and this led to the degeneration and destruction of the parks facilities and spaces. The consequence has been seen in the dwindling value of the park indicated by dropping visitor numbers. However the council decided to begin work on the park after placing its bid with the Heritage Lottery Fund. This has prompted the writing of this management report. Five proposals will be considered for the work on the park. The first proposal is the upgrading of the Mundy Play Park, next is the renovation of the main entry leading to the park and the third proposal is on the accessibility of the park. There is also a proposal on the improvement of the spaces within the park and the stable courtyard and finally preservation and conservation of the historic elements within the park. The work will be completed in one year with each of the reconstruction activities taking between one and five months. Bibliography Books Llc (2010) Parks in Derbyshire: Parks and Commons in Derby, Derby Arboretum, Elvaston Castle, Chester Green, Darley Park, Markeaton Park. General Books LLC. Burnap G. (2010) Parks: Their Design, Equipment and use. READ BOOKS. Burnap, G. (2010) Parks, Their Design, Equipment and Use. READ BOOKS. Eagles, F.P., McCool, S. 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E. (2007) Parks and Carrying Capacity: Commons Without Tragedy. Routledge. Manning, R. E. (2009) Parks and People: Managing Outdoor Recreation. UPNE. Manuvhai G. (2011) Parks and Open Spaces in Derbyshire: Country Parks in Derbyshire, Gardens in Derbyshire, Parks and Commons in Derby, Peak District. General Books LLC, 2011. Ontario Parks (2005) Hockley Valley Park Management Plan. Oxford.Oxford University Press. Read More