Sefton Park ranked in England's top 50

SEFTON Park has been recognised as one of the most important in the country.

It has gained the English-Heritage sponsored Green Heritage Site Accreditation. Only about 50 parks throughout the country have been given this award.

BandstandThe gong is given for achieving high standards in the management and interpretation of a site with local or national historic importance.

Sefton Park, which opened in 1872, has undergone a £6m transformation in recent years to recapture and reinterpret the features which made the park design so ground-breaking at the time. 

Its restoration, which began in the spring of Capital of Culture year, left it looking like a bomb site involving the felling of scores of trees, the draining of watercourses and huge rats skipping about everywhere.

Peter PanBut three years on, green shoots are growing vigorously again. Even the most die-hard cynic cannot fail to be impressed by the site of a real live band playing on the bandstand on a Sunday afternoon, the fountains, the top notch children's play area and the return of the bronze Eros statue – and Peter Pan, even if it does have to live in the grounds of the Palm House, presumably for security reasons.

And speaking of which, the Sefton Park Palm House has retained the Green Flag Community Award which recognises high quality green spaces which are managed by voluntary and community groups.

The £3m restoration of the Palm House was completed in 2001. It is managed by the Sefton Palm House Preservation Trust.  

The park has also won the Green Flag award this year, joining 17 others across the city in an acknowledgement that they are "well-maintained and well-managed, with excellent facilities".