A cafe could be opened in Upper Fitz Park to help boost funds towards the cost of running Keswick’s popular public open spaces.
The new cafe would be created where the wooden storage buildings and tennis court hut currently stand in the park, which also has bowls and putting facilities.
It is an idea being considered by trustees of the town’s Fitz Park and Hope Park who are struggling to raise enough funds for their annual upkeep.
“I would love to have a cafe there (in Upper Fitz Park),” councillor Stephen Harwood told fellow trustees at their online meeting last Thursday night.
His comments came during a discussion on the parks’ finances during which town clerk Lynda Walker asked if the public toilets at Keswick Museum’s cafe in Lower Fitz Park could be opened to the public because of the increased numbers of visitors with the town being so busy post-lockdown.
Mr Harwood said the tennis hut and staff accommodation across the road in Upper Fitz Park were “almost redundant” and that income had been severely impacted at the kiosk there since the museum’s cafe had opened across the road in Lower Fitz Park several years ago.
He believes a new cafe could “work in concert” with the current one on the other side of Station Road.
Mrs Walker said footfall was lower in Upper Fitz Park, which was really only busy in summer when the grass tennis courts and bowling greens were used. “In winter, it footfall would be extremely low,” she said.
It did not discourage councillor Tony Lywood, who supported the idea of a new cafe in Upper Fitz Park, saying there was no formal written agreement with the museum cafe not to open another across the road. “That was then and this is now,” he said.
Councillor Duncan Miller was not quite as welcoming, saying the park’s trust should keep Councillor Harwood’s suggestion in mind. He added that now was “not the right time for a major building development” and that it should be “put on a back burner at the moment”.
He wanted the issue to be discussed early next year, adding that it costs “a hell of a lot of money” to maintain Hope and Fitz parks, saying: “We may have to be proactive in that area.”
Fitz Park’s financial worries are not mirrored at Hope Park, where the company which runs the cafe and games facilities there pays the trust an annual fee for doing so.
Trust chairman councillor Adam Paxon praised the parks staff for their work in making the open spaces so attractive to Keswick’s residents and visitors alike, saying Hope and Fitz were both in “resplendent condition”.
He added: “Everyone in this town is very, very proud of the parks.”
