Four county councillors are keen on making a grand entrance at the Valley Gardens in Harrogate.
They are supporting, through their locality budgets, a Friends of Valley Gardens project to refurbish the access to the Valley Gardens opposite the junction of Valley Drive and Harlow Moor Drive.
The refurbished Green Park entrance will be known as the King Edward VII Memorial Gate. The Friends have acquired the gates and pillars previously forming the entrance to the former Rose Garden on King’s Road. The project, for which planning permission has been granted, will be completed with the planting of a new rose garden.
The Memorial Rose Garden will commemorate the centenary on 11 November 2018 of the end of the First World War.
Councillor Jim Clark (Harrogate Harlow), Councillor Don Mackenzie ((Harrogate Saltersgate), Councillor John Ennis (Harrogate Oatlands) and Councillor John Mann (Harrogate Central) have each had approved £750 from their locality budgets towards the cost of the project. Locality budgets allow the 72 county councillors to respond to local needs and requests by recommending funding of up to £5,000 to support projects or activities that benefit the communities they represent.
The refurbished King Edward VII Memorial Gate will replace the single stone pillar which at present stands at the Valley Drive entrance. The gates and posts were donated to Harrogate by local industrialist and philanthropist William Baxter in 1910 and were originally in King’s Road.
The Friends of Valley Gardens is a registered charity dedicated to enhancing and promoting the park for the benefit of the local community, tourists and wildlife.
Cllr Clark said:
This entrance to the park is used by many people going to the tennis courts, children’s playground and pitch and putt. The gates and garden will greatly enhance this area of the park and provide an elegant and beckoning entrance which should help to attract even more visitors to the gardens.
Cllr Ennis said:
I am glad to be involved with this project and to make a financial contribution. The whole community in Harrogate will take pleasure from this enhancement of our much-loved Valley Gardens.
Cllr Mann said:
As one of the councillors who represent central Harrogate, I am very proud of the Valley Gardens – it is the green jewel in Harrogate’s floral crown and a magnet for tourists, local walkers and young people. I am therefore very pleased that £750 from my county council locality budget is able to go towards the restoration of the Green Park entrance to these fantastic gardens.
The chairman of the Friends of Valley Gardens, Jane Blayney, said:
Friends of Valley Gardens are delighted with the money from the locality budget towards the restoration of the Green Park entrance. Presently at there is a pillar in a dilapidated state and the remaining stump of the second pillar. The original King Edward VII gate and pillars, which were constructed in 1911, have been procured to be re-sited at the Green Park entrance.
Next to the entrance in the Valley Gardens are some rose beds. These flower beds will be extended and replanted with Tommy and Peace memorial roses of the First and Second World Wars respectively.
