Community leaders in St Andrews have vowed to fight for the future of a park on the edge of the town, despite the setting up of a charitable trust to run it being ruled out.
Years of deterioration and now the abandonment of entry charges to Craigtoun Park have fuelled fears the attraction will close or be sold.
Fife Council has looked to community organisations to help find ways of running the facility.
While Cameron Community Council claimed the magnitude of the task would make management by a voluntary trust impossible, its counterpart in St Andrews has launched a bid to find an alternative means of ensuring the park is not lost.
A sub-committee has been formed by St Andrews Community Council, whose chairman Kyffin Roberts said, “The general consensus is that we should continue to try to find ways to secure its future.”
“It’s a difficult situation. The park has been left to deteriorate over a great period of time. The Dutch village is closed, the boats are away and the greenhouse is not in use. “At the moment it’s just a park area where children can play. To get it back to anywhere near its original state would cost a considerable sum of money.”
Mr Roberts agreed a charitable trust would be an impractical proposition beyond the capabilities of community councillors.
He said, “Craigtoun Park is a loss-making business and Fife Council has looked at it for many years and hasn’t found a way to improve the situation.
“I don’t know what the future is and I don’t know how much time we have, but we are committed to doing something.”£3.7m neededCameron Community Council now estimates it needs immediate investment of £3.7m.
An inspection of the park by the community council found the lodge house had been empty and derelict for years, windows in the Dutch village were open to the elements, and roofs and internal structures of timber buildings had been left to deteriorate.
On top of the initial investment needed, it said another £250,000-300,000 a year would be needed for running costs, and it told the council it was “wholly unrealistic” of it to expect volunteers to take on what was a loss-making business.
Its report accused the council of allowing the park to “calcify and deteriorate to such an extent that it has become a poor quality visitor attraction.”
Chairman Gordon Ball said, “There is obviously a lot of love and affection for the park. But it’s one thing having emotion and another having more than £3m to return it to something like that and another quarter of a million pounds a year for its upkeep.
These are difficult times, and money like that is not easily obtained.”
Visitor numbers at the park, which also has putting greens, crazy golf and a children’s play area, have declined markedly in recent years, from 65,000 in 2001 to just 29,500 in 2008.
The council’s north-east Fife area services manager Kate Hughes said, “The council is working with community representatives to explore future options for operating Craigtoun Park.
“The park will be open to the public this year, though without the usual attractions, and I would encourage people to go along with their families this summer and take advantage of this lovely facility which is free to all.”