A £750,000 Heritage Lottery funding bid is being drawn up to improve one of the borough’s most popular parks.

Council bosses have teamed up with community interest company Proffitts to secure money to refurbish Memorial Park in Great Harwood after a previous bid failed three years ago.

It’s one of the only parks in Hyndburn to not receive the prestigious ‘Green Flag’ status.

The scheme could include refurbishing the war memorial and gardens, revamping the old storage building to provide a community basewithin the park for schools and other groups, and providing better access to the Biological Heritage Site.

Councillor Ken Moss, portfolio holder for parks and open spaces, said they want to bring all the borough’s parks to a ‘better standard’.

He said: “Memorial Park is one of the ones that doesn’t have Green Flag status and it should be. We don’t have the money within the council to do it outright so we need to bid for match funding.

“You stand a much better success of getting a grant if you have a Friends group to go with the park.

“Sometimes with these things it’s a case of keep trying until you’re successful.

“The whole park just needs an overhaul really. It would be nice to put in some new equipment and tree planting. It’s nothing too specific at this stage.”

Ian Wilkinson, chairman of the Friends of Memorial Park group, said they are ‘very pleased’.

He said: “We attempted a bid in the past and although we got through stage one we were disappointed not to get it.

“We are very pleased that the council are now trying again. It sounds very encouraging.”

Councillors will vote at a cabinet meeting next week on whether to allocate an initial £50,000 to the project and to appoint Proffitts CIC as project manager if the funding bid is approved.

A cabinet report written by the council’s deputy head of environmental services Craig Haraben said: “Proffitts CIC have offered to undertake the work necessary to secure HLF funding at no cost to the council.

“This is because the mechanism used by the HLF allows any fees for time spent on developing a funding bid to be claimed directly from the HLF during the funding application process.

“It is anticipated that a funding bid will be submitted during 2019.”