A DUDLEY park is set to benefit from £100,000 worth of improvements after work on its pond finally gets underway.

A group of dedicated mums, who formed The Friends of Milking Bank, have worked tirelessly for over three years to raise the cash after deciding something should be done to improve their estate.

With the pond at the top of the to-do list, the group are delighted that work is set to begin imminently, after receiving funding through the council’s Liveability project.

Anita Wilkes, chairman of The Friends of Milking Bank, said: “We are all really pleased the pond is going to get underway as it has become very overgrown and dangerous for the children.”

She added: “Last year a lot of the houses on the estate got flooded with water coming back from the pond. It just doesn’t look aesthetically pleasing at the moment, so we are thrilled work is at last starting.”

Improvements to the pond will include removing the silt and repairing and rebalancing the natural area.

Anita said: “A large area is going to be fenced off around the pond and the silt is going to be pulled out onto the land and dried.

“We are sorry for the inconvenience at the moment, but we are having to have one step backwards to go five steps forward.”

She added: “We are hoping to make it a much more balanced natural area, we have a lot of rats down there at the moment so we want to make it somewhere where nature want to live and thrive in.”

As well as improving the pond, the Friends are hoping to build a multi use games area (MUGA) on the open field at the back of Milking Bank Primary School, but will have to raise at least £55,000 more after the pond swallowed up more money than expected.

Anita said: “Unfortunately the pond took up more money than it was first thought. We thought it would only take £50,000 and we could afford to do both at the same time, but our priority is the pond and we will have to raise the rest for the MUGA.”

She added: “However we could not have got this far without the help of Serena Craigie, who put us in the right direction for funding, Richard Mason, Head of Milking Bank or the council’s liveability fund.”