Boundless enthusiasm and ideas aplenty were on offer when a community-led group set up to save Craigtoun Park near St Andrews held its inaugural meeting.
The Friends of Craigtoun Park group has been established as a pool of resources consisting of interested individuals who have relevant knowledge and experience to help set up a Craigtoun Community Trust and possibly become trustees in the future.
The group held its first meeting at Craigtoun on Thursday night and St Andrews Community Council chairman Kyffin Roberts, who was appointed chairman of the group, told The Courier there had been an impressive turnout despite atrocious weather.
Mr Roberts said: ”I was delighted that 50 people turned out full of enthusiasm and ideas on how to take the park forward. We tried to formalise the group a little bit and appointed office bearers.
”There are two things going on really there’s the big picture where we need to find investment and funds into how to upgrade the park. And there’s also really enthusiastic volunteers looking to help the gardeners and get stuck in at a hands-on level.
”Unfortunately those ideas won’t pay the big bills. But we’ve made a great start.”
The Friends of Craigtoun was established following a public meeting in St Andrews in March which agreed to set up a trust to manage the 41-acre park.
There has been growing concern about the increasingly dilapidated state of the council-run park. In particular, the once impressive Dutch Village had been closed and fallen into disrepair.
The feeling was that the only way to protect the future of Craigtoun Park is to establish a trust that will work closely with the local authority to make the best use of limited resources and get more for less wherever possible.
It is hoped Craigtoun Community Trust will eventually take responsibility for the maintenance and development of the park and will seek funding for its refurbishment and devise a business plan that will ensure it achieves financial sustainability.
However this would only work with the support of individuals, clubs and businesses.
It is thought the bare running costs could be £300,000 per annum with estimated repair bills of £4 million.