NEARLY £15,000 has now been raised to help boost efforts to get a new playpark in Cardenden.

The latest cash boost has come through a special fun day in the village’s Corrie Centre where £560 was collected.

Spearheaded by a group of local mums, the Cardenden Play Park Committee was set up in response to concerns at the loss of the playpark near Cardenden Primary School.

Committee chairperson Islay Dunlop said their latest fun day was a great success.

“We were super-pleased with the turnout, the local community are fantastic and always come out to support our project,” she told the Times. “We raised a fantastic £560 at the Fun Day, bringing our total raised in our first year to £14,707.

“We are delighted with this and now that we have established a fundraising portfolio in our own right, our aim next is to secure some larger funding grants so that we can hopefully have the new park installed within the next 12 months.

“The committee is a wonderful group of local mums that are dedicated to the project and work tirelessly in their own time using their own resources and skills to host some super fundraisers and secure essential grant funding.

"I’m really proud of our group and what we’ve achieved so far and we’re determined to see the project completed.”

The group believe the price for a completely-installed playpark will be in the region of £90,000 to £100,000.

“We are building what they call a neighbourhood park. It is a large area so we can put in quite a lot of equipment such as toddler swings, big swings, toddler units, big units and a wheelchair accessible area.

“We are committed to working in partnership with Fife Council on the project and we like to ensure the community are kept up to date with the project through these community events and our Facebook page,” added Islay.

“Our next community fundraising event is a stall at Cardenden Village Fayre in August and our focus for the project over the next few months is to apply for the larger funding grants.”

It is hoped, if grant applications are successful, that the new playpark could be in place for the start of next summer.