Ilkley playground close to completion thanks to Rotary donation

L-R: Jo Jarvis, Ed Duguid and Peter Mate

The Joint Presidents of the Ilkley Wharfedale Rotary Club, Jo Jarvis and Peter Mate, have presented a cheque for £1000 to the Chair of the Friends of Ilkley Riverside Parks (FOIRP), Ed Duguid.

The money will help the group purchase the final pieces of equipment required to complete the project to refurbish and modernise the playground in the Riverside Memorial Gardens which the FOIRP have been planning and negotiating with Bradford Council over the last 3 years. It is hoped the installation will be fully completed in early August.

Ed Duguid said: “The Club has been a fantastic supporter of our efforts over the last few years to improve the park and have always been willing to come to our assistance when we needed support. We are pleased the refurbishment of the Playground will soon be completed and local children and those of the visitors to our town can now enjoy an enhanced experience. We have had great support from local people and organisations but we always know the Rotary Club will be there for us.

"Recently they supported our popular Christmas Calendar and they also paid for one of the Children’s bins in the playground which are there to encourage children to drop their litter in a bin.

"We are creating a board at the entrance to the Playground where we will acknowledge the financial support that we have received from all local people and organisations without which the enhanced level of refurbishment would not have happened.”

Peter Mate, co-President and former Chair of the Community & Vocational Section of the Club said: “After staging two very successful Duck Races, the last one being alongside the Ilkley Carnival, as a Club we are very happy to contribute some of the profits from the event to the Friends of Ilkley Riverside Parks (FoIRP) not just because we were using some of the park to stage the event but also because we have a strong commitment to supporting local enterprises as and when we can. The FoIRP volunteers work hard to give Ilkley residents a pleasant place to stroll and a safe place for children. The work can be challenging particularly when the summer weather attracts many hundreds of people from outside the town.”

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