A retired teacher's passion for gardening led her on a crusade to save her local park from the bulldozers.
Caroline Williams, 67, joined the Friends of Harthill and Calderstones Park group in 2015 as a way of stretching her green thumb after leaving Alsop High School in Walton and taking up a part-time horticulture course.
Almost immediately she was thrown into a fierce battle to prevent 34 acres of Allerton's Harthill Estate being flattened and replaced with 51 luxury houses by Redrow PLC.
READ MORE: More than 50 homes WILL be built on Harthill Estate despite huge public protests
Caroline, who is now the chairwoman of the Friends group, said: "It became really important to me. There was a huge swell in community involvement in saving the park. We had a couple of big community meetings in All Hallows Church that were packed to the doors, opposition online received 50,000 signatures, some people formed a community interest company and we raised money to finance a judicial review.
"There was a lot of activity and we had a lot of media interest - the Mail on Sunday supported our campaign, Granada TV - we had a number of big meetings in the park.
"We thought we just couldn't allow it to happen. It's such an important green space."
Despite massive opposition from the multi-million company and Liverpool City Council's planning committee, the Friends group and its supporters emerged victorious in November 2018 following a magistrates court hearing.
The Council appealed the decision in the High Court, but suffered yet another dramatic defeat in January 2019.
Caroline said: "We were just totally and utterly elated the day that we won. The community response was amazing. People were in the park with smiles on their faces.
"We felt as if we would never win, because we were a group of mainly retired people trying to oppose a large company with their money and lawyers. We were fighting against what would have been a huge money-making project. We felt we'd achieved a victory we thought we'd never win."
She said the long battle to save the historic park led her to a greater love and appreciation of Liverpool's green spaces.
Instead of a luxury housing estate, a nature reserve is in the process of being made at the park on the site of an old botanical greenhouse which was demolished in 1984.
Caroline said: "We do a lot of different things at the park; it's been full-on. With having such a baptism of fire, it has been really all-encompassing.
"We work on the nature reserve two days a week, and we're making huge changes. We planted a massive wildflower meadow that will come into blood next May. We've made a bog garden by removing concrete and putting a liner in, we've got a dry garden, we've planted hundreds of native whips and standard trees given to us by the Northern Forest.
"It's not only our volunteers who have got involved, but lots of different groups who have seen the importance of the park. We've had people from American Airlines, Liverpool Roller Birds, GoodGym, the Duke of Edinbugh Award. It's all very hard physical work, wheelbarrowing and weeding nettles.
"All of our focus has been on improving biodiversity for pollinators and birds.
"The park during lockdown was utterly full of people. It was just a lifeline for people, a great way of coming together in an open space. People have discovered parks again and there's not a day goes by you don't go in there.
"It's a beautiful park and it's something of joy, especially on a lovely day when the frost is on the ground and the trees look amazing. It's somewhere you can go to convene with nature and be at peace."
Calderstones Park is one of 20 parks set to be protected by the Fields in Trust charity which are working with Liverpool Council to eventually protect 100 parks and green paces in Liverpool from development or sale.
CEO of Field in Trust Helen Griffiths said: “We are delighted to be working with Liverpool City Council to ensure all 100 of Liverpool parks will be protected and available for the whole community, for future generations.
“It might surprise people to know that although they’re probably the most universal of our public services, parks unlike schools, or libraries, are not a statutory local government service, so they are not seen as vital or as something to be protected.
“As a charity, we really need continuing support from the communities and businesses in Liverpool to help turn this vision into a reality."
You can find out more about the charity here
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