A £50,000 pop-up park in the heart of Carlisle city centre has been hailed as a superb success.
In spring of this year, Carlisle City Council used £50,000 from the Welcome Back Fund to create the park outside the Old Town Hall. Greening the Greenmarket was designed give shoppers and residents passing through somewhere to relax, eat and drink or socialise.
Unveiled in April, the space brought a green space into the city centre with seating, artificial grass, plants and animal structures.
Reaction was initially mixed from residents on social media and councillors, with some questioning whether the development was ‘value for money.’
However, at a meeting of Cumbria County Council’s Local Committee for Carlisle heard that the city centre project has been “a superb success.”
Councillor Elizabeth Mallinson said: “I would like to make an observation. There was an awful lot of controversy in the press and those councillors got a tremendous knocking, on putting in the green structures and the benches. It has been the most superb success, I have never seen anything so well used, so well liked.”
Cllr Mallinson said that a raft of positive comments have been received about the pop-up park and issued a call for it to stay in the city.
“Every time I go into the city centre it’s there, people are using it.”
The city and county elected member for Stanwix added that the green space was packed last Sunday when the Mayor of Carlisle read the Proclamation of King Charles III.
Cllr Mallinson said: “I would be very sad to see it go. If it does have to go, then is it possible to put it somewhere in the city centre? Because people like the bit of green and they certainly adored the benches. It’s well loved.”
The Greenmarket project was intended to be a temporary feature, using the Welcome Back funding which was designed to encourage footfall back into town and city centres following lockdown.
