Starbank Park – win best neighbourhood park award

The Friends of Starbank Park are celebrating winning the Best Neighbourhood Park Award at the Horticulture Week Custodian Awards.

Last week a group of volunteers from the Friends group travelled down to the Award Ceremony at Woburn Abbey to attend the celebrations. They were proud to be the only park and Friends Group in Scotland to be shortlisted for an award and now they can call themselves winners! See the shortlist here 

“We are all extremely excited and thrilled at Starbank Park have won the ‘Best Neighbourhood Park’ UK with Horticultural Week Custodian Awards in Partnership with Edinburgh Council. It’s given all our volunteers a real boost.”
- Janet McArthur, chair of the Friends Group

Starbank Park is a small park by the sea between Granton and Newhaven with dramatic panoramas over the Firth of Forth to Fife.  The Friends of Starbank Park have worked hard to transform the park into a hub in their community.

The Friends Group was formed in 2013 and hold lots of events for the whole community. People travel from all over to attend the Halloween party and Easter Egg Hunt, and the group holds volunteer gardening parties at the park every Wednesday and Saturday morning from 10.00 to 11.30am. This month the group are organising a Bubble Festival Picnic on 7 July as part of the Fields in Trust ‘Have a field day’ event and now they’ve got something very special to celebrate that day!

Since 2013, the Friends have removed tons of weeds from the flower beds, returned many of the borders to their original shapes, built composting facilities and planted trees, herbs, fruit trees, shrubs, ferns, herbaceous plants and bedding plants. There is a new children’s nature trail and they have installed a successful little library for children. The Council has been busy too and, together, they are making a huge difference.

The Friends of Starbank Park are longstanding supporters of MyParkScotland and used the site to crowdfund for their children’s nature trail – read about it here.

The group has put a lot of effort into getting the funding mix right for the park activities they undertake, and their Chair recently spoke at Inspiring Fundraising, Scotland’s national fundraising conference, on how they work with local schools to make the most of the park’s educational potential. Projects such as the Edible Gardening Project and Children’s Nature Trail Project have created a worthwhile and lasting community asset with a unique fundraising approach. More