Preston park revamp proposal

A raft of new and refurbished sports facilities are set to be installed in a Preston park as part of a £3.2m revamp.

Waverley Park, in the St. Matthew’s area of the city, is in line for a hat-trick of replacement football pitches, a rebuilt skate park and a new ‘pump track’ for cyclists.

A planning application has been lodged seeking approval for the changes, which also include a new play area and parking facilities.

A modern sports pavilion – to replace the current ageing building on the site – was previously granted approval earlier this year.

The package of works is one of the projects for which Preston City Council received £20m from the previous government’s Levelling Up Fund.

If the full Waverley Park scheme gets the green light, the popular green space – which borders New Hall Lane and Blackpool Road – will see a complete overhaul of its football facilities. Currently, the site boasts one large football pitch and two smaller playing surfaces.

Under the proposal, two 11-a-side football pitches would be created on the eastern side of the park, along with a nine-a-side pitch to the west.

The planned pump track is earmarked for a plot in the north-west corner of the park, just beyond the existing games area.   According to planning documents, it would offer “a circuit of rollers, banked turns and features designed to be ridden completely by riders ‘pumping’ – generating momentum by up and down body movements – instead of pedalling or pushing”.    The oval-shaped facility would be made from compacted material and surfaced with tar.

Elsewhere, there are plans to demolish and replace the existing skate park – although exact details of the new design are not yet known – and to remove the current playground within the park and put a new one in its place.   The current attraction is described as being in “a poor state”, with its replacement promised to be a “safe, secure and welcoming play area for local children”.

The existing car parking area in the south west of the park is set to be expanded to increase its capacity to 34 vehicles, while a new 27-space facility is also proposed at the northern end of the site.

The city council project will now be assessed by the authority’s own independent planning officers.   A public consultation has already been carried out into the project, but residents can also make their views known to town hall planners until 29th November, by emailing devcon@preston.gov.uk and quoting reference number 06/2024/1066.

Initially, £1.7m had been reserved for the Waverley Park overhaul as part of Preston’s Levelling Up Fund allocation.  However, an extra £1.5m was added to the budget in August when money from abandoned plans for a similar revamp of Ashton Park was redistributed to other city levelling up projects, which have all now been rebadged as the ‘Active Preston’ programme.

The Aston Park facelift was dropped amid public opposition and the need to plug a £5m cost increase across all of the Levelling Up Fund schemes in Preston.

South Ribble-based Eric Wright Civil Engineering, has been appointed to advise the city council on the Waverley Park revamp.

Programme Manager Dan Evans thanked locals for their feedback, which he said has “helped shape the project into a fully accessible sports pavilion and changing facility, which will benefit every generation who use Waverley Park”.

He added:  “We’re thrilled to be involved with its redevelopment and look forward to a positive outcome at committee at the start of the new year. We will then commence works which is estimated to take approximately eight months.”