MASTERPLAN

2026 Progress Update - 

Following the successful public consultation and, of course, general delays caused by things such as Covid, Horbury Heritage Trust (HHT) worked hard to secure a long-term lease to take over the management of the park.

Following detailed and lengthy negotiations to secure a long-term lease through a Community Asset Transfer, a 49-year lease was finally completed in August 2024.

Since then, HHT has taken over the day-to-day management of the park, with the support of the very active Friends of Green Park Horbury group. You can follow the Friends and keep up to date with the latest developments via the Friends of Green Park, Horbury Facebook page.

At the same time, we were progressing a detailed planning application to obtain permission for the many structural improvements needed to rejuvenate the park. As a result, we have largely been restricted to planting programmes within the park and along Green Park Avenue (with the Council's permission, as the avenue is not included within the lease).

We were delighted that, after all our hard work, planning permission was finally granted for our revised masterplan in February 2026. While this was a major milestone, discussions with several major grant funders made it clear that, because of the lengthy timescale involved, they would require our public consultation to be refreshed before we submitted formal funding applications.

To address this, we will be launching a series of consultation refreshers during the summer of 2026. This will ensure that local views continue to shape the project and place us in a strong position to apply for the substantial grant funding needed to bring the masterplan to life."

Michael Cudworth, Chair, Horbury Heritage Trust & Friends of Green Park Horbury.

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The Trustees would like to thank everyone who has contributed to provide their feedback to our public consultation, which has now closed. This was an essential part of the Business Plan to support our application to Wakefield MDC to obtain a Community Asset Transfer to take over management of Green Park and rejuvenate it for the benefit of our community. The results were overwhelmingly positive and can be viewed in full via the link below. 

Green Park is generally seen as a good space, but an undervalued opportunity that could be made much more biodiverse, attractive and engaging for our community. 97% of respondents said that they would visit, or visit more often if the park were improved, providing strong evidence of support for change. 

The Management Committee have considered changes to the Masterplan in light of the consultation findings. This was done in conjunction with a sub-group from the newly formed Friends of Green Park Horbury, and our consultant at “Groundwork”.

In view of the very positive response, much of the plan is similar to that suggested in the Concept Masterplan that was published for the consultation. However, some significant changes have been made as explained below and valuable feedback has been obtained that will help shape the finer detail within the park.

Incorporation of CCTV

Reflecting concerns about the potential for anti-social behaviour and security of the assets to be added. Interestingly this was also universally welcomed by all of the young people we met during some additional consultation with the Horbury Breakthrough Youth Project. We aim to link it in with the Primrose Hall CCTV system recorder, but there are logistical and planning issues to address so it cannot be guaranteed that it can be done, but we shall do our best!

Removal of shallow wet scrapes. 

This was the least popular suggestion in the consultation and is replaced by more open, short cut grassland, with occasional trees. This reflects the comments of some that the plan "looked busy" and didn't have enough open space for play dog walking off lead.

Fine detail suggestions

The final make-up of things to go into the play areas and other features is some way off being finalised, but we have listened to feedback from the consultation and Breakthrough Group. At our meetings, with advice and guidance from our Groundwork consultant, we have analysed all suggestions in detail and identified some items that we would leave out and some we would seek to include.

Michael Cudworth – July 2021

For the Green Park Consultation Report click here.

For more information about the Green Park project click here.

For more information about Green Park’s history click here.