Plans for the animals are still on course thanks to volunteers at Palacerigg

And neither lockdown nor the final shutdown of the North Lanarkshire Council-run -visitor centre at the park will stop it.

The group - which simply calls itself Palacerigg Animal Park - admits it hasn’t been able to start work but has been harnessing technology to pave the way for it.

Director Jennifer Milne said: “We have been having regular Zoom meetings in order to keep ourselves in the loop. We are ready to hit the ground running once we are able to gather in multi-household groups to do the required ground works to the fields, at which point we will be looking for help from the local community and businesses for both materials and volunteers to build fencing and pathways.

“We had asked the council for a meeting regarding the future of the visitor centre buildings.However this too has been unable to happen due to the same Government guidelines. We will chase this request again once restrictions are lifted.

“Plus we’re still welcoming orders for our educational animal book, written and illustrated by John Rankin Books, as well as donations to the Animal Park Fund through Paypal and our GoFundMe campaign.

“However we have stopped the public appealing for funds during the current climate.”

The animal collection which had many rare breeds, was removed from Palacerigg last year on cost grounds by NLC.