Park Palace Ponies Community Open Day.

Riding and grazing in L8

As an urban riding centre situated within a predominantly residential area, community and stakeholder engagement has proved key to the scheme development and viability of Park Palace Ponies. As the newest residents of the Dingle, the ponies will share areas of Council owned open space with the community. As one of the five grazing sites, Park Hill Allotment Association will not only welcome the ponies onto their site (in exchange for manure and free grass cutting!), they offered their site up for the Park Palace Ponies Community Open Day held on 24^th April 2016.

Harrison Stringfellow Architects along with long time friend and collaborator Placed http://www.placed.org.uk developed a programme of events to ensure that visitors and stakeholders were fully informed about the Park Palace Ponies proposals and the Client could obtain valuable feedback on the business model. Visitors also enjoyed a meet and greet with horses Izzy and Clive, a horseshoeing demonstration, planting activities and a ride on our straw bale carousel.

The potential for further community engagement opportunities are continuing to be fully explored. A text based installation forming the corner of the site will be developed with a spoken word artist and community input. The community will also be invited to participate in a giant paint by numbers activity to personalise the riding arena enclosure. The opportunity for other arts and community projects will be pursued including mobile apps to profile each pony and track their location amongst the 5 grazing sites.

The Park Palace Ponies Community open day was the first of many future events where the community will be invited to participate in the scheme whether this be as a rider, volunteer or sponsor. Of the responses received so far there has been an overwhelming support for the project citing the transformational effect it could have on the area. Park Palace Ponies are now looking forward to a Summer 2016 opening!

A snapshot of the day was captured by our friend John Ramsten at Tiber Enterprise Facility here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXbp1hvp_zg