South Lakeland Parks (SLP) Forum

Last Wednesday, the last day, we packed up and shut up our Lodge for the end of what has been an extremely busy season for us at Fallbarrow. Most visits of 2 weeks out of every 6 this year has been high maintenance and consequently expensive, so not much left in the lodge account to blow on an end of year meal (ah....); BUT having been at the point of wanting to sell up, we are pleased that we changed our minds as overall it's also been successful. So it was nice to enjoy a 2 week pre Christmas and 2 week post New Year chill out. During that time it was the Grounds crew that have been experiencing the high maintenance and consequently expensive time as we watched them busy at work. As mentioned by "Fallbarrow" the Jetties were taken out before Christmas, and the lake floor near the shore has since been dredged to accommodate larger boats alongside the new ones. The guys on the project have been working really hard in the bitter cold and driving rain, and it's been interesting to watch (from our warm and dry lounge). Before we left on 14 Jan they had got to the stage of hammering home the first of the new posts. During the last couple of days Ambleside Tree Services were also on site at Fallbarrow clearing quite a few trees, I'll call him a tree doctor but a guy was carrying out a general inspection around the park earlier in the year so now it was time for the surgery to be carried out, and they didn't mess around!!! They even took over part of the village car park alongside Fallbarrow Road to work on trees behind the roadside perimeter fence. By the time we left a couple of trees had gone on Lakeside and a few behind Tree Tops - which I guess could now be aptly renamed 'Tree Trunks'. Clearing had started on the green currently occupied by the children's play area and boat park ready for a new lodge development, and B Section appears to be ready for its makeover and new lodge development. Trenches through the back of R section/tourers and up and through the bottom of F Section were being dug out, presumably for the power supply upgrade to be installed. So all-in-all for the next 6 weeks I can picture the park being in a right old mess.

Going back to the Survey, and in view of the newest lodge development which appears to be underway and will take away the open green space and children's play area at Fallbarrow Park - I did add in my comments box that whilst Lodges are lovely and they look great it would be, in my opinion, a huge mistake to development further the remaining open green spaces around Fallbarrow Hall as this I feel would then choke the park of it's 'Park' environment and only remaining breathing space. I have to add that SLP may not have any such plans for now or for the future, but I wanted to make that point just in case they do!!

Great post ASH.

Good to hear that they are cracking on with the jetties, especially as I have reserved a berth for the coming season. Also good to hear there is progress with the power infrastructure. On our flying visit to close up on New Years Day we did not have the time to check all the progress out in great detail. Also, there was no workmen about on NYD as you would expect.

Here's to the new season