HothamParkrevampset to lift off

Contractors will move into the park's former Rainbow's End pleasure park next month to clear away a decade's worth of neglect.

The large site in the park's south-eastern corner has become overgrown and virtually impassable. Brambles, bushes, grass and weeds stretch up at least six feet tall as nature has taken over the area.

The result is a wilderness hidden from view from the users of the rest of the park.

That will start to change when landscape contractor UPM Tillhill moves its workers in during the second half of October. They are expected to take a month to remove the remains of the few buildings '“ including the Village Tavern '“ which have survived the past ten years along with the accumulated mass of leaves and branches. The various layers of Tarmac will also be broken up to take the entire area back to earth.

The next stage will be to create a nature conservation area and an events space along the park's boundary with Church Path. The rest will become grassland, along with retained mature trees, with a fish pond to be created.

This will mean that the two hectare location will become one with the rest of the park by October next year.

It will be the first time for almost six decades that no walls or fences will divide the large plot, about a quarter the park's size, from the park. A zoo was created soon after the park's opening in 1947, was relaunched as Zootopia in 1979 and Rainbow's End four years later.

The theme park welcomed its final visitors in 1997 but continued to be occupied by the operator until the following year when its contents were auctioned off.

No members of the public have since been allowed in as landowner Arun District Council joined with the Hotham Park Heritage Trust volunteers for the occasionally frustrating process

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