Plans for Kettering's Meadow Road Park

Kettering council wants to attract more people to the green space at Meadow Park in the centre of town and develop it into a hub of activity for young and old.

After discussions with residents the authority has come up with a scheme for the under-used park, which during one day of the council’s observation project had no users.

Phase one of the development could include a new children’s play area, a fitness zone, park benches, a hard standing area for mobile catering vans to sell food and drinks and pitch markings for informal games.

Phase two would concentrate on the Northfield Road area of the park and create a green corridor along the Slade Brook which runs along the edge.

The report, which will be looked at by Kettering council’s executive committee at the Bowling Green Road council offices at 6.30pm, says: “The vision is to develop the park as a key destination area for the town. Current footfall measures show that over a 15-minute weekday lunchtime period in September, between 33 and 45 people use Meadow Road to access/exit the town centre.

“It was also observed that on one of the days there were seven people using the park, and on the other there were zero. Improvements to the park will be designed to increase this footfall, increase dwell time and encourage more people to visit the town centre.”

The park is one of 19 projects identified by the council as being crucial to the development of the town centre which has been hit in recent times by the loss of many of its high street stores.

At the meeting the Labour opposition are going to make the suggestion of more activities for teenagers such as a graffiti wall or skatepark.