Cuthill Park Action Group 3rd Meeting: April 24th @ 7pm

Cuthill Park Action Group's Third Consultation

As advised below in both the East Lothian Courier and East Lothian News and with door-to-door flyers, the third open consultation meeting of the Cuthill Park Action Group will be held at The Prestoungrange Gothenburg at 7 pm on April 24th.

Myriad great notions have come forward since the campaign to get the park back in use began late last year. And these include embracing the proposal to include the park on the Core Paths Scheme across East Lothian for which a county wide draft was recently published.

Seemingly all parties are in agreement from East Lothian's outgoing Prestonpans Councillors Willie Innes and Provost Pat O'Brien [ELC is its legal custodian] and the Community Council to local indwellers that it is time to get the park back functioning again properly. Discussions with the Bowling Club and Royal Musselburgh Golf Club are both proceeding to accommodate their neighbourly interests too.

Top of the Action Group's agenda is to restore play facilities for youngsters and children and to create a great landscape as the park looks across the Forth to Edinburgh. Not far behind is the hope of the Prestoungrange Arts Festival that the natural amphitheatre the park has can be institutionalised for outdoor arts activities. The Arts Festival has been very well pleased at the reception given to its Lottery funded Witch Mural by local resident Tom Ewing in the park in 2006. It believes the park can readily become the focus for their Annual Mural Fest starting this June during the Three Harbours Festival, and its Annual Cow Painting Competition following the success of that project in 2006 as well.

How Best to Organise the Next Stages of the Campaign?

The Action Group has kept the Community Council and ELC Councillors fully informed of all stages of its campaign thus far. Lately Councillor Willie Innes has suggested the final stages might suitably be co-ordinated with the two councils by the Action Group being designated as an Action Committee of the Community Council. Whether the Residents' Action Group decides to go that way will be determined at the April 24th Meeting. Local opinion is of course divided on the best way to go, but the consensus currently seems to be to create a formal set of Residents' Action Group Proposals and to table these with the officers of both Councils for their opinions and an indication of whether and when such plans or better ones will be carried into effect. At the very least, residents confidently expect to see the grass cut once again for the spring and if it's not they will continue to ask: Why not?

If no reasonable timetable for substantial improvements is forthcoming from the Councils it is more than likley that the Action Group will sensibly resolve to continue its uniquely focused identity and explore any and all other routes it can find to get the result it believes is long overdue and wholly appropriate. It quite simply wants its park back! And frankly it is not minded to take no for an answer.

The park, known then as The Glebe, was donated for the benefit of the community more than 75 years ago and the ELC as the community's custodians are honour bound to see that is precisely what goes along.

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