Wyre Council has scrapped plans to launch a bid for lotto cash and is instead being forced to go back to the drawing board – but bosses say they are determined to get improvements to the area by a different route.

The council's own cash, the involvement of community groups and lottery bids on a smaller scale are the combination which could see a revival of the down-at-heel green area.

Council portfolio holder for living healthily, Coun Lynne Bowen, said a shortage of lottery cash was a problem.

The council had also had advice that a bid would fail without a round of public consultation.

But she added: "I think we can get some quick fixes and get the place looking a lot better.

"I think major work is going to come from lottery funding but if community groups are going to get interested in the park they can become eligible for different grant funding that the council can't get."

She would be trying to get an immediate injection of the council's own cash.

Coun Bowen added: "We have a dozen people interested in having a friends of the park group.

"They are going to have a meeting shortly and are trying to get other people involved.

"Age Concern is interested in getting older people doing planting in the area to rejuvenate the area."

Some areas could be improved with council cash and others, such as the tennis courts, could benefit from smaller lottery bids.

The council was talking about a lottery application as long as two years ago.

But the scheme included a new building for Fleetwood Gymnasium which was not acceptable to the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Now the change of tack has produced fierce criticism from Wyre's Labour group leader Clive Grunshaw, who complained that the council had delayed too long in putting in a lottery bid.

Complained

He said: "After all this time of playing around with a consultation and writing up a scheme, we have been misled and misinformed by Wyre Council.

"This is so disappointing after all this time.

"We are going round in circles and we are back to square one.

"We have had a lot of consultation already with a task group. We asked them to put in a lottery bid and they didn't do it."

He complained that money had been available for the Jubilee Gardens in Cleveleys.

Coun Bowen responded that there had been a sale of nearby land to fund that but there was nothing to sell in the area of Fleetwood park.

She said: "Clive Grunshaw wants something done about it and I am as keen as he is to see something done."