The first phase of a project to create a long-awaited public park in Burnham-On-Sea has been completed this week.
Burnham-On-Sea.com first reported last year that work to transform the former Rosewood Farm landfill site into a new park, called Rosewood Green, had begun, almost 20 years after it was first considered.
The district council decided in 2009 to spend £2.4m clearing up the former waste landfill site in order to turn into a public space.
The four and a half acre site will provide seating, play equipment, footpath and cycle way links, plus new landscaping when it is fully complete later this year.
Work on phase one of the project began last August and has now been completed.
In the first phase, a ‘hidden, underground wall’ has been built around the former landfill site to contain any potential leakages from the former waste.
A sub-soil capping layer has been laid and compacted to make the site ready for a layer of top soil that will form the basis of the public park.
During the second phase of the project, landscaping of the site will take place. The laying out and landscaping of the site will include the provision of recreational facilities.
It is hoped these works will be completed in the spring and summer of this year with final completion in the autumn and winter of 2011 to allow for good planting conditions.
Cllr Bob Filmer told Burnham-On-Sea.com: “I’m over the moon that the work is underway. It was first considered in the late 1980s before being taken forward in the 1990s. In the 12 years that I have been involved, the project has been delayed by changes in the regulations for dealing with former landfill sites, which we have now addressed, and a badger sett was also discovered at the site which required extensive work with English Nature.”
Sedgemoor District Council’s Harley Cook with council Chairman Jane Moreton and Cllr Bob Filmer at Friday’s completion of the project phase 1 and, above, the plans for the new park
