It's not every day that something like this arrives in the office!

This is when we realised just how big it was going to be!

It's finally landed and taking shape nicely!

Over the past few weeks the residents of Shaw, Oldham will have noticed a new addition to their park and they wouldn’t be blamed for thinking something ‘out of this world’ has landed in their little neighbourhood! Yes, the DUNWOOD PARK CLIMBING BOULDER has finally landed and has made a bit more of an impression than first envisaged.

The boulder is the result of a successful Stage 2 Heritage Lottery Fund Bid in 2010 by Oldham Council supported by Ryder Landscape Consultants (RLC). The works, which are currently onsite, include the restoration of key historic park features, the enhancement of recreational facilities for the local community and improvements to a main avenue through the park adjacent to the River Beal. RLC are acting as Contract Administrator on behalf of Oldham Council for the duration of the site works. We are now approximately half way through the construction phase and the park improvements are really starting to take shape (expect more blog entries as works progress!).

It isn’t just the park that’s getting a face lift. LEP Architects have been working on two new community building within the park and we have been working closely with them to ensure their successful integration into the wider proposals.

The boulder is the centre piece of a new woodland playscape and has been designed to include a number of different climbing routes of varying degrees of difficulty. Once the onsite installation is complete and it’s been given a paint job (to make it look like rock!) the RLC team will be taking a trip to Oldham to try it out for ourselves, we’ll be reporting back on how we got on in the near future…..watch this (outer) space.

Jonathan Miley