Swans, ducks, reed-planting, children from six schools and a home-made Swan Lake cake – just some of the ingredients at the launch event of the Lakeside Explorer project in Newcastle.

The party was a celebration of the hard work carried out by the Exhibition and Brandling Parks Community Trust to transform the lake in Exhibition Park.

A Community Spaces grant helped the trust to improve the landscape around the lake, making it more wildlife-friendly and with better opportunities for visitors to enjoy nature.

The Lakeside Explorer project combines the best of the past with a new future: it softens edges and builds boardwalks out into the lake, creates sheltered shallows planted with reeds which will soon be tall enough to hide people walking though them and brings new plantings of wild plants to the lake edges.

Well done to all.

The Conigre Mead Volunteers have set up a blog to keep friends and supporters up to date with developments at the project.

The volunteers, who help to maintain Conigre Mead Nature Reserve in Melksham, which is owned by the Wiltshire wildlife Trust, are using their £47,710 Community Spaces grant to improve the reserve.

Work include new surfaces to paths, new gates, new notice and information boards, and new seats. It will be carried out during the next few months and will be finished by June 2012.

The work will make the reserve more accessible and friendly to all users, particularly those with disabilities. Wheelchair and buggy users will be able to use the reserve all year round.

Seats will be installed suitable for all ages and will be useful for school groups and others.

There will be up-to-date and seasonal information about the site and its wildlife

New pathway at Bramley Baptist Church, Leeds

The majority of Community Spaces funded projects include a path – they make the world of difference in making a site user-friendly and accessible and that’s why it’s so important to get them right.

Paths should be designed to be accessible to everyone, including people with limited mobility such as wheelchair users, and to those with sensory impairments.

If your project includes a path, it is important that you include with the Stage 2 application a path specification to detail the length and width of this path and the construction materials. This should include the surface material, any edging and any drainage provision that may be needed.

We recommend:

• Paths should be a minimum of 1.2 metres wide

• Surfaces should be firm, level, non-glare and non-slip when wet or dry

• Loose materials, such as gravel, bark chip, cobbles and uneven setts should be avoided as they make access difficult.

The following organisations can provide help and guidance on designing inclusive outdoor environments:

http://www.sensorytrust.org.uk 

htpp://www.fieldfare.org.uk 

If you’ve already designed and installed a path as part of your project please share any useful hints and tips in the comments section below.

New pathways at Broadwaters in Kidderminster

The Friends of Broadwaters based in Kidderminster secured just under £50k from Community Spaces in May to create what they called ‘Pleasing Pathways’.

The project aimed to improve access to a sensory garden and encourage people to use the space more.

The group has been keeping people up to date with progress on site via their own blog, see: http://friendsofbroadwaters.blogspot.com/2010/07/work-in-progress.html

They have posted a great piece about the transformation of the old site into new pathways and have shared some of the ‘up’s and down’s’.

Community Spaces funding of just under £49k has allowed the Sheffield General Cemetery Trust, in Sharrow, to light up the Cemetery with lanterns in a celebratory opening event.

Until this year the Cemetery paths were in too poor a condition for the lantern procession to pass through. The Community Spaces funding has made the restoration and widening of the Cemetery paths possible. Futher funding and support was provided by Groundwork Sheffield, the Rotary Club, and Section 106 monies. Access has been much improved for all users, especially for people with walking difficulties, those in wheelchairs as well as pushchair users.

The opening of the new route was celebrated on Sunday 11th April and  specially made lanterns, by children from Sharrow Sure Start, lit up the pathways and led the procession, ending in a jazz lounge style musical celebration.

Sounds like a fantastic celebration. More details and photographs can be found at: http://www.creativeaction.net/view.php?id=15