Saughton Park Restoration Project 

​

 

Moving towards construction

 

It’s finally here, the year when we start the restoration work!

 

Our designers have been hard at work over the past few months completing the detailed design and tender drawings.  They are almost at the end of this process, and in February we will be issuing ‘Invitations to Tender’ for contractors to price the job.  The work will be carried out under two contracts, one for the Buildings and one for the Landscape.  The successful contactors will be appointed by the start of June this year and work is due to commence shortly afterwards and will run for approximately 12 months.  The exact timescales will be confirmed once the contractors have been appointed. The new veranda leading to the refurbished Chapel which will provide a new community and volunteer venue and office space for staff and the Caley.

​

During the construction phase we will try to keep as much of the park open as we can.  However, closures are unavoidable and it’s likely that the Winter Garden, Conservatory and public toilets as well as both car parks will be closed for the majority of the 12 month period.

We aim to keep the Skatepark and the three football pitches to the north of the Skatepark open for business as usual although the two pitches to the west will be out of action for the 2017/18 winter season to allow us to do remediation work and re-seeding.  More details will be published in due course.

​

​

The detailed design phase has enabled us to put more thought into the finer details of the master plan and to develop ideas more fully.  There has been very little significant change however.

The main change worth noting is that the Winter Garden Conservatory is being retained.  This was due to be demolished and the Winter Garden extended.  It was felt however that the Conservatory was very well used and worth retaining. 

 

Both the Conservatory and the Winter Garden will be completely refurbished and re-planted.  The old cafe area will be removed (as a new cafe is being built to the west of the site) and space will be made by the Plant Room for a small kitchen area which can be used by groups for community events.  The public toilets in this area will be refurbished, and will complement the public toilets being built near the new cafe. 

 

The other change is the location of the Water of Leith Viewpoint.  It was decided to move this along to the Weir as the traffic noise was not as obtrusive and the view to the Water of Leith and the Weir was much better than the original proposed location.

​

We have developed detailed designs for a network of off-road green Active Travel routes running through the park.  This design work is being funded by a Sustrans Community Links grant, and the plans will be used to support another funding application to the Sustrans Community Links fund to carry out the works. 

 

There is already HLF funding secured to develop this network of paths; however additional Sustrans funding will allow us to widen the paths to allow pedestrian and cycle traffic and so help to increase the number of ‘Quiet Routes’ which run across Edinburgh.  Seating areas will be incorporated around the whole path network, some with fitness trail equipment to complement the outdoor gym area. 

​

The detailed design work to enlarge the playground and make it more inclusive so that children of all ages and abilities can play and have fun together is almost at the end.  This plan will be used to support a number of grant applications we will be making this and next month.  If successful, we will be able to put in a path network so that those in wheelchairs can move around the whole playground and there will be more equipment that children in wheelchairs or those who need more support can use and enjoy, and importantly it will provide much needed opportunities for them to play together with other children. 

​

Unfortunately the Edinburgh Inline Hockey Club has not had success with their recent bids to raise funding to build a new inclusive multi-use games area.  We will continue to work with them to identify other funding.

The new outdoor gym will be located to the west of the playground, next to the games area.  We have some funding secured through the HLF bid and we will be trying to raise additional funding to increase the amount of the outdoor gym equipment.  If the additional funding can be raised, we will have a ‘spin zone’ with various bikes and a toning zone. 

​

The designs will be available to view on our website www.edinburgh.gov.uk/saughtonpark and in the Winter Garden from Monday 16 January

​