Volunteer group celebrates as Whaley Bridge park receives Green Flag status for a seventh year

The Green Flag Award scheme run by Keep Britain Tidy recently marked 25 years of setting the benchmark standard across the UK and around the world – and for the last seven it has bestowed the honour upon the 101-year-old park on Reservoir Road.

A dedicated Friends group work alongside High Peak Borough Council’s parks team and its grounds maintenance partner Alliance Environmental Services (AES) to care for and develop the park, and the council’s deputy leader Damien Greenhalgh joined the community volunteers as they hoisted the flag this week.

He said: “We’re delighted that the Memorial Park has retained its award. It’s a fitting tribute to our parks team, the Friends and the volunteers who devote their time to keeping the park in peak condition for everyone to enjoy.

“Parks and green spaces play such an important part in our wellbeing and, over the last two years in particular, so many of us have come to value them more than ever as places to relax or move more in beautiful outdoor locations.”

He added: “We are committed to protecting and enhancing these special spaces across the High Peak and to have an award-winning council park on our patch is fantastic. It’s this standard of amenity that, working with communities and volunteers, we are working to replicate in other areas of the borough.

“I congratulate everyone involved for their dedication and enthusiasm which has, once again, resulted in the Memorial Park being honoured in this way. It’s an achievement we can all be proud of.”

The Memorial Park is not the only one in High Peak to receive an award, as the community orchard in New Mills has received a Green Flag for the 12th time.

Coun Greenhalgh added: “This is a terrific achievement and I send our congratulations to the Friends of the Orchard, the wider community in New Mills and the town council.

“We’ll soon be launching our parks strategy setting out our ambitions to see more community-led initiatives such as this established across the borough so it’s great to have the New Mills example to point to to show what can be achieved. Great job everyone.”

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