The pictures on the left, taken in 2009 when the lake was drained to inspect the damage, clearly show the state of the lake and the condition of the banksides. 5 Years on the situation has only got much worse.

Anybody can see that the lake at Paddy Freeman's as well as the surrounding Park is in a sad condition. Newcastle city council have made severe budget cuts to the staff involved in the maintenance and upkeep of the city parks. The result is a decline in the state of the city parks and the loss of valuable ammenities. Paddy Freeman's lake has been gradually silting up over many years due to litter and leaves. Its now reached a critical state and the council understandably has no cash to do the required work to drain and clean the lake.

A possible way to get around this was to apply to SITA (the waste management company) who do give awards of cash to support local social and environmental projects. The lake cleaning project met all the required criteria to be able to be submited to them in the hope that we might get the required funding to fix the lake. The bid submission was prepared by the city council staff witrh assistance from the Model boat club, the local councillors, the local ward commitee and the Friends of Paddy Freeman's and Castle Farm playing fields group. Quotes were obtained and the bid submitted in early 2014.

Alas in June we heard that the bid was unsuccessfull. SITA don't give out much information but did say that the bid failled due to strong competition from other applicants. This has been a devestating blow but on the bnright side we can apply again in 12 months and will do so.

It will take a lot of work to create a stronger bid for sumission in 2015. If you are a local resident or park user and feel strongly enough to give just a couple of hours of your time once a month then please come along to the next "Friends" meeting which is usually held on a Tuesday evening at 7pm in the meeting room of the information centre at Pets corner (come to the sliding door of the shop next to the cafe). For the date of the next meeting use the contact us form on this website and we will reply emailing you the date. We will also post the dates and venues on our Facebook page.

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On the 5th of July the club put on a display at the Seaman's Mission in North Shields down by the fish quay as part of the fund raising event they were putting on. The display proved to be very popular and the event raised £1,236 on the day for the charity.

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The club had another successfull year raising a total of £60 for the RNLI.