It’s Day 23/25 of Community Spotlight as part of Interlink RCT’s 25th Year Anniversary celebrations!

Today, the spotlight is on Friends of Tyn y Bryn Park!

The purpose of Friends of Tyn y Bryn Park is to promote the wellbeing and health of the people of Tonyrefail by helping to develop facilities in Tyn y Bryn Park for the residents’ recreation.

One major development has been the application to create a skate park at the park. Following a five year campaign, Friends of Tyn y Bryn Park in Tonyrefail secured funding to build the new skate park.

The funding is made up of three grants and includes £165,000 from the National Lottery, £50,000 from the Welsh Church Act Fund and £50,000 from the Welsh Government’s Community Facilities Programme. This comes alongside a substantial donation of £19,700 that Alex Davies-Jones MP made in her former role as Councillor for Tonyrefail West.

Friends of Tyn y Bryn Park told us “We were asked by both funds to put in for the second round application which is when we were offered the support of Interlink to help complete the Lottery application form.”

Friends of Tyn y Bryn Park met with Craig Roberts through Interlink’s ‘Peer-to-Peer Mentoring Programme‘. Craig helped to look through their application, suggest amendments and run a follow-up review. They mentioned: “We sent a copy of our application, met for an hour or so to discuss it, and then spent possibly a week relooking at the application. Craig looked over our amended version and emailed possible suggestions for amendments.  

After being so involved in the application, it was great to have an external pair of eyes read through the application and suggest things that, having been through the process, had an idea of what was needed in the application.  

This was an important intervention at exactly the right time and of exactly the right sort. It may not make a difference to the outcome but at the time it gave me added positivity about our project and about our chances of success.

Having Craig work with us on our application boosted our confidence in our project and our application.” 

Alex Davies-Jones MP said:

“It has been an honour to support the local community in raising funds for this skate park. The Friends of Tyn y Bryn Park group have done an incredible job in listening to local residents’ views and it is clear that so many people across the area are excited, and would benefit, from the prospect of this ambitious skate park. It has been brilliant to play even a small role in putting the wonderful park in Tyn y Bryn even more on the map. This achievement is also testament to the hard work of our local Councillors, Dan Owen-Jones, Danny Grehan, Karen Webb and Dawn Parkin as well as our fantastic community councillors across Tonyrefail and District. Once in place I hope the skate park will benefit many generations for some years to come, and who knows – even I might be tempted to give skateboarding or roller blading a go!”

Austin Davies, Chair, Friends of Tyn y Bryn Park said:

“Securing the funds for this exciting skate park has been a long-term goal for our community and it is brilliant to know that the project can now go ahead. Our success so far has been thanks to the hard work of our volunteer group, the local community as well as our local councillors, Member of Parliament and Member of the Senedd. I am keen to see work begin soon and know, having spoken to young people across the area, how excited they all are to use these facilities once they are in place too.”

Find Friends of Tyn y Bryn Park on Facebook.