By John Preston
After a campaign over the past 18 months Burley Park has a beautiful artificial cricket wicket to replace the worn and damaged one that had lasted 15 years.
This has been a real team effort lead by a sub-group of the Friends of Burley Park. Left Bank Charitable Trust agreed to hold the funds, as the Friends of Burley Park isn’t a registered charity and can’t run larger projects in its own name.
Discussions were held with the relevant teams within Leeds Parks to ensure the renewal would meet their requirements, and access and sign-off could be done efficiently on the day.
A successful application to the Wade’s Charity led to a connection to Yorkshire County Cricket Club Charitable Youth Trust, who agreed to fund the balance.
The project was delayed while the major Network Rail tree works took place it was finally installed in early April.
A spokesperson said: “The wicket is heavily used by many of the local people, including groups of Indian students and cycle delivery riders.
“The new wicket doesn’t have stump holes and the Friends have provided wooden boards for setting stumps for those who don’t bring their own free-standing stumps.
“Here is to the next 15 years of the wicket – early maps show a wicket on the field from when the Park was first laid out in 1900. A huge thank you to everyone who has enabled and supported this project.”
Friends of Burley Park is a voluntary run charitable organisation working with Leeds Parks and Countryside to involve the local community in the fabulous Burley Park.
It runs a year-round programme of twice-weekly gardening sessions on Monday and Tuesday mornings, a volunteer work party on the second Sunday morning of each month and an occasional series of events.
Next event is Picnic and Bands in the Park on Saturday, 20 June.
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