A group dedicated to the improvement of Poulsom Park have submitted a memorandum of understanding to Castletown Commissioners and described the park as ’neglected’.

If agreed, the Friends of Poulsom Park (FPP) hope that the memorandum will allow them to plant flowers and hold fund-raising events in the park.

FPP founder Anne Davis said the public space has ’such potential, but it hasn’t been tapped into’.

The group stated that their remit is to: ’Promote the protection, enhancement and maintenance of Poulsom Park and its environs to an appropriate standard, ensuring the park is kept in good order and remains available for the benefit and enjoyment of the residents of Castletown and others, and to ensure it is safeguarded as a public park’.

The organisation started as a group of friends who would walk their dogs through the park, and think about what kinds of improvements could be made to it.

With the permission of then town clerk Eddie Convery, they began planting daffodil bulbs around its edges.

Local businesses then donated shrubs to them, but when they put the proposal to the office of the commissioners to have them installed in planters in the park, Anne said that they were told they ’did not have time’ to look at it.

She feels that the group’s suggestions have never made it past the local authority’s office, and were not presented for consideration to the commissioners themselves.

The group has, however, been assigned commissioner Jimmy Cubbon to liaise between them and the local authority.

Anne said the group is ’more like a PTA’ and that there is ’nothing political about us’, rather they just ’wanted to help in a general way’.

She continued: ’It’s a super park, but it has been neglected - not a lot has been spent on it’.

The group feel that the park could be used for more events, saying that they are full of ideas but were not able to implement them.

Ideas included the installation of a mobile bandstand, bird boxes, and a Victorian-themed ’Mary Poulsom day’ - in memory of the wife of William Poulsom, who gave the park to the town in 1896.

For anyone interested in joining the group, membership is £2, and they can contact Anne Davis at [email protected] or the secretary/treasurer Zoe Ellis at [email protected]