Lanark’s Castlebank Park needs your help

Will you be one of these pals and help return it to the beautiful “jewel in the crown of the Royal Burgh” it once was?

It is fast approaching the tenth anniversary of the Gazette presenting South Lanarkshire Council with a petition signed by almost 2000 of our readers calling for “urgent” action to save Castlebank, its famous terraced gardens having then just been closed off because they’d been allowed to decline into a dangerous state.

Despite that cry for help, a major rescue plan aimed at returning the park to a Fifties-themed replica of how it was in its prime never got off the ground and now the coucnil has `devolved’ much of the Castlebank rebirth task to the Lanark Community Development Trust.

To kick-start its efforts, the council is gifting a £120,000 new playpark, to be near Castlebank House, replacing the worn-out eighties facilities at the car park, but it will take a million pounds just to return the park to a reasonable state of repair.

The Trust itself has set an initial target of raising half a million pounds to make a start on a full restoration that will cost millions more.

For more on this story pick up a copy of the Lanark Gazette which is in the shops now.