Walkerville Residents Protest Construction Of New Path Inside Willistead Park

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Work on Willistead’s new path is pictured on Friday October 11th

Plans for a hard surface pathway around Willistead park have come under criticism by Walkerville residents now that the project has commenced.

Save Willistead Park, a new group on Facebook, has been started by Walkerville resident Elaine Weeks and her brother Howard Weeks to “to stop and desist current construction work” on the wide path being constructed.

City administrators recommended a $10,000 expenditure in the City of Windsor’s 2012 Capital Budget for a project that included both the pathway and an accompanying storm drainage system following 2010’s flood that cancelled the second day of Art in the Park.

The drainage project consists of the installation of catch basins and tile drainage that, according to the report from 2012, will “solve a long standing problem of poor drainage and seasonal flooding in the park” and “will reduce the expense of turf repairs that are required at critical times in the year”.

City administration said in 2012 that the “path system around the inside perimeter of the park will provide a reliable and accessible route for all park users and visitors to special events”. In the 2012 plan, the City did not specify how wide the path would be, only calling it a “hard surface pathway”.

Construction work began last week to install storm sewers in the northeast corner of the park and crews widened an area of grass with gravel for the future path.

Organizers from Save Willistead Park are planning a rally on Tuesday and ask citizens to “tell the city and anybody else who will listen that you want the work on the Park stopped until the citizens of Windsor are given all the information, and have a proper opportunity in a proper forum, to give our input”. Weeks says the group is protesting “the perimeter roadway, not the much needed drainage improvements”.

The rally will take place Tuesday from 7am – 9am at the North Gate (Niagara at Kildare).

For more information, visit Save Willistead Park on Facebook.

A vendor walks through 15cm of water after Art in the Park flooded in 2010

Work on Willistead’s new path is pictured on Friday October 11th