I LOVE Friends of Lumb Lane

Juniper is always a great experience, but meeting Alejandra Solis of Friends of Lumb Lane Park made it just that extra bit special this time!

You may be thinking “Alejandra, what a beautiful and exotic name!” Well she is a beautiful lady who was born and raised in Mexico would you believe!

           Alejandra Solis and her husband

Alejandra decided to move to Florence in Italy after school with dreams of becoming a poet and a photographer. Looking back now, she says that she hated it and the whole lifestyle just wasn’t for her. A new venture would follow, but where to? She applied to various universities around Europe and she was accepted at Manchester Metropolitan, so moved to England in 2001! Her degree was in communication studies and she even went on to do a masters in PR.

Whilst at university, a house party would be the scene where she would meet her would-be-husband, Peter. Peter owns a virtual reality marketing company called Hidden and the pair live in Bramhall with their two kids, Oscar who is 7 and Lydia who is 3. Oscar goes to Pownall and Lydia is currently at the Methodist, how lovely. Alejandra says that she loves Mercato so much that she considers it an extension of her house!

As she’s often in the village, she enjoys a lot of the availabilities here. Corry’s, Costa, Juniper, Blanc de Blanc, Bubble Room to name but a few of the favourites she listed!

“It’s just perfect, you have everything in once place.”

Alejandra and her family used to live in Hale, opposite Stamford Park. They were big fans of the park and used it many times a week. When they moved to Bramhall, they were close to Lumb Lane park and noticed how shocking the state of it was. Going from such a nice park to a below-par one didn’t sit well with Alejandra and she wanted to make a difference for the Bramhall community. She would ask why it was so horrible and why nothing was being done about it – nobody knew. Neighbours who had lived there for 30-40 years would explain how it had always been like that. One of her neighbours was Bernard, who said that if Alejandra wanted to do something about it then he would help.

                   Lumb Lane Park Before

A problem was that there was no access to money for improvements. The new committee was told that any funding would have to be sourced privately. A few meetings with the council in 2015 led to the target sum of £50,000 to bring the park up to scratch.

“What is special about Bramhall is that everybody wants to make it a nice place to live and a nice community.”

Fundraisers would follow such as events at Mercato and Chilli Banana as well as the summer festival. Alejandra praised I Love Bramhall and Wendy for all the help she’s been throughout the whole process too.

Last October there was an open day at the park to ‘clean up’ as well as plant some flowers in there. Over 4,000 bulbs were planted that day – WOW! This was down to the people who came down and helped out with their friends and family to make the park what it is today and what it will be for the foreseeable future. Bushes were tidied, litter was picked and a total of about 300 people turned up to help! Well done Bramhall community, you did it again!

Alejandra and her committee also applied for a few grants, resulting in Waitrose and the council giving them some money. This added onto the fundraising efforts and a huge chuck of the target (£42,000!) that Wren gave them to actually meet the target of £50,000! Considering the size of the park, what Friends of Lumb Lane Park has done is amazing – and it’s nearly finished. New swings, toy horses and other things to enjoy are on their way very soon to join the new climbing frame, basket swing, see-saw and so much more that has been installed thanks to the work of Friends of Lumb Lane Park.

The work has been so much more enjoyable for Alejandra thanks to the efforts of the Bramhall community – and now we have another gorgeous park to enjoy as a result of it. Thank you Alejandra and thank you Friends of Lumb Lane Park… we LOVE you!

• Phone : 07817 838298
• Email : [email protected]
• Address : Lumb Lane, SK7 2BA
• Facebook : Friends of Lumb Lane Park
• Twitter : LumbLaneFriends

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