Funding

We are currently looking at all aspects of funding to improve the local park, we will keep you updated with any developments. If you are a local business and would like to help us improve this park for the community please get in touch with us as any help or donations are much appreciated and go towards making this park a better place for everyone.

Community Donations and offers of help

If you are a member of the community or a business and wish to make a donation please make your cheque payable to 'Northbrook Park Community Group' and send it to the address on the contact page of this website. Thank you to all who have made donations to us so far.

Meetings

Look out for our next meeting, please make the effort to attend, all welcome! Remember its your park, have your say on what you would like to see in it. - Please keep an eye on our facebook site for details of any meetings that are coming up and also the noticeboard at the entrance to the Forest School / Wildlife area.

Minutes of group meetings

If you wish to see the minutes of this meeting please visit our facebook page. Northbrook Park Community Group.

Surveys

Please visit our Surveys page and take our very short yes / no surveys as we really need your support to know what you would like to see in the park

Play Bus enters Northbrook!

As from Monday 13th January 2011 the Lewisham play bus will be going into Northbrook Park for pre school children aged 0-5 years of age. This will be every Monday Afternoon from 1.30 - 3pm and is free, it has a range of different fun activities for your child to enjoy. This has been organised by your local counciller Suzannah Clarke.

Read about our latest news or information about the park below:

Selchp

We have been awarded a donation of £3k towards our Fitness Trim trail equipment this will enable us to get a couple of extra pieces and also install the safety surface underneath the items. We will be working on this early 2013 and hope to get this installed by the summer.

London Marathon Trust

We have recently heard some fantastic news that we have been successful in our application for funds to go towards the run down area at the back of the park to have a new tarmac surface and also a Multi Use Games Area installed on it. We will be working on this in 2013 and hopefully it should be completed by the summer.

London of Lewisham

We have managed to secure 9.5 k as match funding to enable us to apply to the London Marathon Trust for funds for our MUGA.

Mayors Fund 2012/2013

We attended the Grove Park Assembly meeting in October and presented our case to receive some monies towards completing the Fitness Trim Trail at the park, we came third in the voting and won the full amount of money we had asked for, which was £7842.00 Thank you to all who attended and voted for us. We also have some group funds to go towards this to put fitness tarmac markings around the park for everyone to use. This should be completed by the summer.

Kumho ' Cash for Causes'

Thanks to GT Tyres for their support with the Kumho ' Cash for causes' Campaign and although we did not win the online voting for the 1st prize of 2k, GT Tyres in Sydenham managed to raise us £150 for the park which is fantastic news! Thanks for your support.

Selchp

We applied for a donation from SELCHP for a Table Tennis Table and we were awarded £3360.00, unfortunately the company that originally quoted for this omitted to include the price for the base so now we are hunting for a company to help us so that we can still install the table into the park on a reduced cost for the concrete base !

Biffa Award

We have been awarded funding to purchase and install new junior swings in Northbrook Park which is fantastic news, they have been missed so much since being removed and not replaced while the play are was being renovated. The park just keeps getting better and better i am sure you all agree.

11/9/2012 - swings have now been installed and are ready to use.. have fun!

Big Lottery Fund - Awards for All

It has just been confirmed that we have been awarded £5860.00 from the Big Lottery Fund Awards for All program to go towards the outdoor fitness equipment that will go into Northbrook Park, this money has gone together with the Nat West Community Force funds and we now have 9 pieces of fantastic gym equipment in the park which is being well used already. Lets get fit together!

Multi Use Games Area - MUGA

Due to the recent disappointing news that we were not succesful in our bid for a Multi use games area and sports coach, we are currently looking to see if there are any other funding pots that we may be able to tap into, watch this space for any further news, we may only be able to apply for the MUGA though and not the trainer as well. We will keep the website updated with any developments. We have applied to Veolia for funds for our Muga we should hear around October / November time if we have been sucessful - Watch this space!

Queen Elizabeth II Fields Challenge 2012

Thanks to all who voted for the park to have the Queen Elizabeth II status we done it !! - Unfortunately due to red tape and legal issues we cannot have this status for our park.. sorry guys!

NatWest Community Force

Thanks for voting for us with the Natwest Community Force campaign for 6k to go towards outdoor gym equipment in the park, We won £6275.00 ! - We have added this to the £5860.00 we receieved from a grant application we put in to awards for all and we now have 9 fantastic pieces of gym equipment in the park.. Fantastic news!

Magnifying Posts - Forest school - Wildlife area

We wish to express our thanks to Kier London and Catford Couriers for our Magnifying posts in our forest school area at Northbrook Park, These companies kindly purchased these for us so that children can examine insects and objects closer under a magnifying glass in our outdoor 'forest school environment'. we currently have one local primary school visiting the area on a regular basis but hope to increase that in the future.

These are the first of their kind to be put in a public park in the borough of Lewisham, our group are really proud of them and the children love them. (see our pictures section for photos of them in use).

Kier London donated 3 normal size posts and Catford Couriers donated the Nursery children size post so that all ages can enjoy them. We would not have them in the park had it not have been for these companies generous offer to help us, the community payback team kindly installed them for us.

Multi Use Games Area - Application to the Big lottery Fund - Reaching Communities Strand.

October 2011 -We have now put our full application in for our Multi use games area and sports coach in Northbrook Park, this will take around 4 months to get a decision on Reaching Communities Lottery fund. February 2012 - Unfortunately we were not successful with this bid they had 72 bids totalling excess of 19 million and they only had 10.03 million to spend so had to make some difficult decisions on who to fund and unfortunately we were not one of them.

Big Tree Plant Fund

We have just heard some fantastic news that our application to The Big Tree Plant fund has been approved, this was for £5290, we hope to be able to start this work using this money in October time, you will see trees being planted for shade and wildflower areas to add colour and interest to the play area.

BTCV - Chesnut Fund

We have just been awarded a grant to enable us to buy tools to use in the park and around our forest school area from BTCV Chesnut fund, these tools will also come in very handy on community days when we plant new things in the park.

Ernest Cook Trust

We have been awarded £2145.00 to install some outdoor interactive sound posts for the wildlife area, these make sounds of nature as people walk past them and are especially fun for children

Wakeham Trust

We have been successful in being awarded a small grant of £350 from the Wakeham Trust for seating in the forest school / wildlife area for the classes of children that visit the area for forest schools and also the community to enjoy the area, we have found that new railway sleepers will be our best option cost wise and will also fit in with the surroundings.

Play area transformation finally underway

Work has finally started on the park play area - launch date is now set for saturday 20th August 2011.

Changing places - Community Spaces

It was confirmed in March 2011 by Community Spaces that our grant for £49,999.00 for the play area was approved, fantastic news!! (Groundwork UK)

Mayors Fund - Drinking Water Fountain

Thanks to all that come along to the Grove Park Assembly meeting and voted for us to be awarded 10k for the Mayors Fund for our drinking water fountain at Northbrook Park, this has now been installed and will be turned on and ready for use around March / April 2012 time.

London & Quadrant Housing Grant - L&Q

L&Q Funding approved - Feb 2011 - we have just heard fantastic news from London & Quadrant Housing that we have been awarded funds towards the supply and installation of a zip wire, hammock and safety surface,in conjunction with the kind offer of a considerably reduced cost to supply and install the equipment by Safeplay in Beckenham. Safeplay have agreed to do this for us to help the local community. Our thanks goes out to them for their kind offer. They have also been kind enough as to offer to refurbish the play equipment that is currently in there in order to bring it back up to a 'as new' standard. What a fantastic company!
be putting photos on the website of progress.

Big Lottery Fund - Awards for all application

We have received a grant from Awards for All lottery funders for the commisionning / de-commisioning maintenance of the new splash pad area in Northbrook Park for a period of 3 years. We applied for this as at this time in this current climate we could not really expect Lewisham council to pay out for this.

Working in conjunction with LB of Lewisham & Groundwork London

We are now working closely with the Council's Parks Department and Groundwork London in order to develop an overall scheme for the park.

We hope that work will start on the play area at the park by March 2011 time but we will keep you updated on any developments with this date. The play area was completed on the 20th August 2011

PEOPLES MILLIONS - 50K WON FOR WATER PLAY AREA

This is our latest news we have won the 50k for the play area from peoples millions thanks to your votes. please see other page on our website dedicated just to the PEOPLES MILLIONS PROJECT. We have the support of the following people: The Mayor of Lewisham..Sir Steve Bullock, Heidi Alexander MP, Suzannah Clarke Councillor Grove Park Ward, Groundworks London, Groundworks UK, Chris Ball Roofing, Lewisham Council, SIG Roofing and East London Business Place to name a few, please get in touch and let us know if you are backing our campaign.

Veolia Trust - November 2010 - application unsuccessful.

We should find out in the next couple of weeks if we have been successful or not in our application for funding through Veolia Trust for fencing to be placed around the perimeter of the main grass area at Northbrook park. This will ensure that the park has a nice picnic / family grass area to play games, eat lunch and a dog free zone for the community to enjoy. Unfortunately we have learnt that we were not successful in our application for funding through Veolia Trust. 8/11/10

MPGA - Metropolitan Public Gardens Association

MPGA kindly agreed to fund a mobility picnic bench for us, this was the first and only picnic bench to be installed in Northbrook Park and it was so well used we had a few more installed.

Section 106 Fund

There is funds going towards the play area from the 106 fund which has been approved. November 2010 - 46k

Playbuilder Fund

The funding for Playbuilder money has been agreed, which is great news after all the doubts that the park may not get it! - November 2010 - 41k

London & Quadrant Housing - L&Q - October 2010

We have been awarded a grant from L&Q community fund which will pay for colourful shrubs / plants to brighten up the park, mobility picnic benches and some logs for the children to sit on in the parkMagnifying Posts - Forest school - Wildlife area

Generous Donations & Community Support

Magnifying posts

We wish to express our thanks to Kier London and Catford Couriers for our Magnifying posts in our forest school area at Northbrook Park, These companies kindly purchased these for us so that children can examine insects and objects closer under a magnifying glass in our outdoor 'forest school environment'. we currently have one local primary school visiting the area on a regular basis but hope to increase that in the future.

These are the first of their kind to be put in a public park in the borough of Lewisham, our group are really proud of them and the children love them. (see our pictures section for photos of them in use).

Kier London donated 3 normal size posts and Catford Couriers donated the Nursery children size post so that all ages can enjoy them. We would not have them in the park had it not have been for these companies generous offer to help us, the community payback team kindly installed them for us.

Grange roofing & property refurbishment, Aaron Fencing and Torry Hill Fencing have all helped us to get together fencing and gates to enclose our forest school area at Northbrook Park, this will ensure that dogs are kept out of the area and also that no children escape while they are enjoying having their outdoor forest school lessons at the park. Aaron fencing donated the big metal main gate and some post and rail fencing, Torry Hill fencing donated some more chesnut paling fencing and Grange roofing & property refurbishment donated two chestnut paling gates for the 2nd entrance to the area.

Forest School / Wildlife area entrance noticeboard

Greenbarnes Ltd kindly offered to manufacture & supply an outdoor noticeboard for us to be positioned at the entrance of forest school, this will inform visitors to the park what the area is used for and what they will expect to see. The design of the map was kindly done by Groundwork London for us.

Bird Champion Project

Our Bird Champion project is about to get underway and we could not have done this without CJ Wildlife Birdfoods, they have agreed to sponsor our bird feeding project at Northbrook in the forest school area in order to attract birds back to the park and create an interesting area for the community to sit in and the local school children to visit. If you wish to purchase bird food or feeders for your garden birds please call them on 0800 -731 2820, they give great service and offer great products for a wide range of birds. If you would like to be our bird champion and feed the birds on a regular basis please email us and we will contact you about the role.

Our Wildlife Pond, Hibernaculum, Stag Beetle Loggery, Bug Hotel and some bird boxes, bat boxes and hedgehog houses are in place for our wildlife project in Northbrook Park. We could not have done this without the help of Baring Primary School Pupils (who made one each with us), Lewisham's and Glendales conservation officer, Natures Gym, Catford Timber, Torry Hill Fencing, Travis Perkins in Lee and all of the donators listed below.

Chesnut Paling Fencing

Torry Hill Chesnut Fencing came to the rescue again when we were finishing off our Wildlife Pond and Hibernaculum, we needed around 12ft more of fencing - Torry Hill kindly offered to supply it again so we are now in the process of placing it around the pond and the Hibernaculum to ensure people do not trample all over the home for the amphibians as there are lots of air pockets and crevices for them to live below and if people were to stand on it or remove the pipes this could cave in their homes and kill them. We are also in the process of putting up signs next to the various features to give a little bit more information about them.

We held our tree planting day on the 20th April and we will planted 300 Hazels to make a coppice which have been donated by Cheviot Trees. We also had tree protectors donated by Ansini.

We wish to express our thanks to the following companies for donating things we have required for the Wildlife project at the park and making Northbrook Park a nicer place to be!:

www.pondkeeper.co.uk, Wickes (Barking) Catford Timber, Torry Hill Chesnut Fencing, Gordon Low Products, Travis Perkins (Lee) Paul bromfield Aquatics, CJ Wildlife bird supplies, Cheviot Trees, Chris Ball & Son Roofing Ltd, www.nutbags.co.uk bird food(02380-894132) Thompson & Morgan Seeds (experts in garden - to request a catalogue call 01473 695224)

Homebase Kidbrooke - Donated Ready Mix concrete for our Tyre Trim Trail posts. Fawns Play donated the wooden posts and fixings and Grips Tyres & Wheels donated the tyres along with a £100 cash donation

Vine House Farm donated some bird food and a feeder for our bird area

Vegatable Seeds.net donated seeds

Arsenal Charitable Trust and Mark Harrod Limited have supported us in putting new goals into Northbrook Park after the old ones had to be removed due to them being illegal - these will be fitted in the summer by Glendale

Commense Ltd - Donated seeds

Cranswick pet Supplies supplied some bird treats and plastic feeders

Aero Arts have agreed to create murals on the containers at Northbrook with a wildlife theme to make them more interesting and appealing to the area and the community and WOW what a job they done.. Thank you James, you are a star!

Hertalan have agreed to supply the materials to create a green roof on the top of the containers although we still need a company to install it for us.. any offers??

Pets at Home Charlton kindly donated some bags of straw for our bug hotel and hedgehog houses

Majestic Wine Shops and Oddbins Wine Shops supplied the wine crates for our Hedgehog Houses and also our planters that we have made

Homebase Catford donated £35 worth of plants so that we could attract the bees and butterflies to our bug houses that the local Baring Primary School made and also provided us with all the log roll we needed for our forest school activity circles.

Coolings Garden Centre donated some Buddleias, sedum spectabile and some compost, again to attract the butterflies to the forest school area

Insectlore have donated 2 x school butterfly sets including the butterfly habitat and 66 caterpillars, Baring Primary school will be looking after these caterpillars untill they are ready to be released and then they will be taking them around to Northbrook Park to release in the Forest School area. Insect Lore also donated some kids rakes, spades and hats

Edwin Tucker & Sons donated a box of seeds

Straights PLC donated a Water Butt and stand

Catford Couriers ( 020 8297 0321) have sponsored one of our Magnifying Posts in the forest school area at Northbrook Park

Travis Perkins in Catford for their continued support with our mission to improve Northbrook park.

Wickes Charlton donated 7 Metres of Log Roll

Shirley Garden Centre donated lots of Tired plants and they are doing great now

Simpson Wreford & Co Accountants have donated £50 which will purchase a bird bath for the Forest School area from Primrose London who are offering it at discounted price and with free P&P

Wilkinson Plus in Penge have donated £40 towards our purchase of a 50 metre Hozelock Hose cart and hose

Qlawns.co.uk / Enviromat.co.uk have donated 30 SQ Mtres of meadowmat to create a wildflower area in the Forest school area, we will be laying this in the near future. This has been laid in the play area as we thought the community would benefit more from it there.

Suttons have donated wildflower seeds

Travis perkins in Forest hill donated Compost for our planting days

BritishBirdFood.co.uk has donated dried sunflower heads for the birds at Northbrook Park, the birds love them, if you wish to purchase any please call: 0800 121 6024

Travis Perkins in Lee have agreed to donate materials so that we can create a pathway into our forest school area and also create our Activity circles which will have bark as a surface.

Our Tree planting day on 27th March was a great success, thanks to all that joined us. The Royal Horticultrial Society donated 104 native tree whips for our 'forest school' area at the back of the park. Thanks to Travis Perkins Catford, & Travis Perkins in Forest Hill for their kind donations

The community payback team have been busy clearing the 'old play area' at the back on the right hand side of the park, behind the stables and they have done a great job already. We hope to try and get an application in to improve this area but it looks as though the council may need volunteers to help upkeep the area, if you are interested in putting something back into the community and helping with weeding , general clearing up of that area as and when required please get in touch with us.

Painting of Railings to brighten the park up - October 2010

We recently had a very kind donation made from Travis Perkins in Catford and Dulux Paints, they have donated, Black Hammerite Metal paint, Paint kettles, Brushes and gloves in order for us to brighten up the railings and make the park look less run down. We contacted the community payback team who have been working very hard around the park every week since September to paint the railings for the community at no cost to ourselves. Well done to them and thank you to Travis Perkins, Catford and Dulux for their kind donations, we would not be able to improve the park without companies like this around.

Forest School Logs

We finally managed to obtain some tree logs for the forest school children to sit on at the back of the park on the left hand side within the tall trees, all thanks to City Suburban Tree Surgeons, we greatly appreciate their help in supplying and delivering these free of charge for us, they make great seats and the children from the local baring school are making use of them weekly on a Tuesday to have their forest school lessons in the park. Feel free to go their and sit on them and enjoy the surrounding area, its nice and peaceful over there! - Look on our pictures page for the photos of the logs in the park. Also a big thankyou to Lumley Designs more recently for donating and engraving a wooden plaque for our forest school area to tell the people that visit that area what it is currently being used for and why the logs are there.

PEOPLES MILLIONS CAMPAIGN We have been busy getting leaflets and banners printed in order to leaflet the community for support, the following companies have made this possible with donations or reduced cost printing: Chris Ball & Son Roofing Ltd, CopyFax Printers in Penge, Printed Banners and Designs and finally Arti Promotions in Greenwich for donating and printing our group t-shirts and Jackets. Thank you so much to all of you.

Raffle held - Peoples Day

We held our raffle on Peoples Day 10th July 2010 at Mountsfield Park and thanks to 'Surestart, downham' who allowed us to share their pitch. We raised £260 for the park and had some fantastic prizes which were donated by various companies and without them we could not have raised this money. This will be put in the groups bank account until we can find something suitable for it to be spent on. The donations were made by the following people: Tesco Express Grove park, Kingsmill, Co-op Downham, Vibe dance nights, Ceroc Bromley, Ceroc Greenwich, Drusillas Park, Diggerland, Build A Bear, Mahashri health hair and beauty, Young Driver, The London Dungeon, Charlton Athletic, Millwall Football Club, Manchester United, Marks & Spencers, The bredgar & Wormshill Light Railway, Horton Park Childrens Farm.

SURVEY INFORMATION

The results from our last survey back in the early summer 2010.

1st place: play area 2nd place: fencing around main grass area 3rd place: cafe 4th place: toilets 5th place: picnic benches 6th place: plants / flowers 7th place: Water play area 8th place: school sports day 9th place: shelter 10th place: Tarmac area resurfaced 11th place: Football pitches marked out clearly 12th: forest school area fenced off 13th: football agility area 14th: dog agility play area 15th: basketball facilities 16th: bmx track / dirt track 17th: digging & growing area 18th: skateboard park

We are conducting a consultation on the some of the things that the community have suggested to go into Northbrook Park, if you wish to see idea's of what these may look like please go to the pictures section and have a look at the photo album before voting or alternatively visit our facebook page - NORTHBROOK PARK COMMUNITY GROUP and you can also see them on there. Thanks and happy voting!

It was suggested the following items in the following areas:

1.Multi sports court - where the old basketball court is now on the hard standing tarmac.

2. Shelter - undecided where but needs to be where the children are playing so if parents are sitting in there they can watch their children

3. Forest school area, the idea for this one is right over the back on the left hand side corner where the tall trees are coming out of the grass area and it would be made to be more like forest school with mini beast area and digging area - a place for all to explore!

4. Sensory Garden / Wildlife Area - There has been suggestions that the old play area which has been left to overgrow shoud be put to some use, although kept a reasonably quiet area, a place for your senses in the sensory garden and also a place to attract wildlife to the park, a proffessional landscaper would be required for this.

5. Pavillion - It has been suggested that we are in need of toiletsback in the park, a small cafe kiosk to get the odd drink / snack and changing rooms for the football teams especially the girls team that we have lost due to the lack of faciliites. This pavillion would also have an office for a park keeper should we be lucky enough to acquire one! We have not thought about he possible places for this yet.

6. This is not on the survey but please contact me with your thoughts, a drinking water fountain, everyone gets thirsty when they are exercising / playing or when it is hot, water is already run into the park and just needs reconnecting and the fountain put in - what is everyones thoughts on this i am keen for you to let me know.

7. One last thing, did you know we have a gift from Lord Northbrook in our park, the site of Northbrook Park was a field known as the Ten-Acre field, although in fact it was nearer nine acres. The field formed part of the baring estates in Lee, and in 1898 Lord Northbrook offered to present it for public use, in commemoration of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. A Sundial marks Lord Northbrook's Gift. Have you seen that Sundial, no neither have i, the brown piece of concrete where it use to lay on looks like it has been beaten and battered, would you like to see that piece of heritage restored back to how it should be? with a plaque detailing the history so all can learn a bit about our park. Contact me with your thoughts please. Thanks, Michelle