A POPULAR park languishing on an ‘at risk’ register is unlikely to get much-needed money for improvements for up to seven years.

Wanstead Park’s owners City of London Corporation (CLC) postponed indefinitely a bid for £5m of funding at the last minute in May and, at a meeting last night, park users pushed for a timescale for a new bid to be submitted.

But CLC superintendent Paul Thomson failed to set a date, saying that bids for Heritage Lottery Funding generally take between five and seven years.

Wanstead Parklands Community Project member Ralph Potter said: “We had a timescale mapped out [for May’s bid] and we could see an end date but now it’s all up in the air. The idea that the bid takes seven years is nonsense.”

The news puts the park’s immediate future in doubt as Community Project member Paul Ferris raised the issue of day to day management.

He said: “We need regular upkeep not big plans. A lot of parts are inaccessible for many and people looking after the park would fix this.”

“What I see is a deterioration in the park.”

But Mr Thomson said the bid needs a well thought-out plan which would take years to develop. He wants to co-operate with the three minority landowners of the park, which includes Redbridge Council, to create a Conservation Management Plan, which would establish priority repairs.

Despite reports that the two bodies have a lukewarm relationship, Mr Thomson said there was “no problem” and that dicussions between them are “a positive process.”

However no Area One councillors, three of whom are also part of the Friends of Wanstead Park, attended the meeting, although Cllr Sue Nolan is on holiday.

The park was put on the English Heritage’s ‘at risk’ register in 2009 but despite Mr Thomson admitting that the Heritage Lottery Funding had “made siren calls” for them to make a bid for cash in May, nothing was submitted over concerns about long-term management costs.

The CLC would be required to provide 10 per cent of the money needed for renovations to the lake systems, Grotto and Temple among other repairs, and it is looking at using volunteer hours - where people put in time to work on projects - to contribute towards this.

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