Friends ‘putting’ golf money to good use at Haigh Woodland Park

The Friends of Haigh Woodland Park have raised £17,500 to fund new canal-side benches, colourful wildflower verges, and convenient dog foul bins to keep the popular destination looking its beautiful best.

The cash comes from proceeds at the park’s Crazy Golf course, which is managed by group members from March to the end of October.

The money will also pay for upgrades to pathways and the publication and promotion of new walking trails.

Coun Chris Ready, cabinet member for communities and neighbourhoods, said: “I’d like to say a massive thank you to the Friends of Haigh Woodland Park for their fabulous donation and for all their hard work and dedication.

“It’s an exciting time for Haigh Woodland Park following the recent announcement of £3.78m in National Lottery funding to support our Heritage, Nature and People project, and it’s wonderful to have such a committed group of local people who share our passion for this amazing place.

“With their help, we’ll now be able to provide an even better experience for the hundreds of thousands of visitors who come here each year.

"The new benches will offer a quiet spot to sit and relax while the wildflower verges will provide bursts of colour and an important habitat for bees, butterflies and other wildlife.

“I’m also excited by the relaunch of our walking trails which will be available both in leaflet form and as a digital App, and will hopefully encourage more and more people to come and explore our incredible park!”

This is just the latest donation by the Friends of Haigh Woodland Park, who have already funded free community attractions such as the popular Picnic Brass Series and Christmas events.

Group members were all given a vote on how they wanted to see the money invested, and their chosen projects will all now be implemented in the coming months.

Ray Hinds, chairman of the Friends of Haigh Woodland Park, said: “We’re proud to have such a great group of volunteers who give up their time to raise funds for the park, and we all get a lot of satisfaction out of knowing that the money is going to really good use.

“We love seeing how much people enjoy the Crazy Golf and every penny that we make goes right back into the park or to one of the brilliant charities we support.

“We have people coming from Manchester, Preston and all over telling us our Crazy Golf course is better than anything they’ve got over there! We only charge £1 and we get a lot of people saying ‘you could charge a lot more’ but we don’t need to… We just want to make people’s experience in the park a happy one.”

As well as raising funds for park projects, the group have already supported six worthy causes this year – including Wigan and Leigh Hospice and the Samaritans.

Charities are permitted to ‘take over’ the running of the Crazy Golf course for a whole day and get to keep all the money they bring in.

They are guaranteed at least £200 – with the Friends making up the shortfall should it be an unusually quiet day.