Green light for latest improvements to historic park

Plans for a new café, amphitheatre and viewing platform at Sunderland's historic Roker Park have been given the green light.

Artist's impression of how the new cafe and amphitheatre at Roker Park could look. Final scheme could differ in delivery

A planning application for this latest stage of the continued transformation of the popular Victorian park has been approved by Sunderland City Council's Planning and Highways Committee.

With indoor and outdoor seating, the café will offer views of the park's Grade II listed bandstand and the recently restored fairy dell waterfall and ravine. An associated landscaping scheme will also see amphitheatre style seating overlooking the bandstand and the revitalisation of existing planting schemes.

The bandstand itself is due to be restored to its former glory in the third and final stage of the current improvements to the park later this summer.

Sunderland City Council's Cabinet Member for Vibrant City, Councillor Linda Williams, said: "Roker Park is one of our best loved parks and we're really excited about these plans which are part of a wider programme of improvements to the park.

"These have already seen the restoration of water features in the park including the waterfall and the boating lake. I think the café and amphitheatre will be enormously popular, especially given the views they'll offer of the bandstand and any performances.

"Later this year we're also hoping to press ahead with the restoration of the historic bandstand, refurbishing the former park keeper's lodge and opening an accessible changing places toilet. It's important that we look after the historic features in the park as well as developing new attractions to meet the needs of growing visitor numbers, and keep families coming back time after time."

Councillor Graeme Miller, Leader of Sunderland City Council, said: "Investing more than £10m on regeneration and improvements to our stunning seafront has helped to make it a real destination for residents and visitors from the wider region and beyond in recent years and we hope these latest improvements will prove equally popular."

Following planning approval, work on this latest phase of improvements is expected to commence next month for completion in Summer 2023. The next stage of the works on the bandstand, lodge and changing places toilet will follow on immediately after this.