Mayfield Park is magnificent and very welcome, but it is certainly not the first public park in our city in 100 years (Manchester opens first new park in 100 years, complete with ‘scary’ slides, 22 September). Even when that claim is qualified, as the council’s press release does, to “first in the city centre”, it’s a bit of a stretch. The 29-acre Hulme Park is more than four times the size and was commissioned at a cost of almost £2.7m in 1999-2000. Like the 6.5-acre Mayfield, it is adjacent to the inner relief road – just outside, but nonetheless probably a little nearer to the town hall.
The small but perfectly formed 4.5-acre Brunswick Park, opened in 2018 at the heart of the University of Manchester campus and part of the universities corridor – which is often considered to be part of the city centre functionally – is also well worth a shout.
Chris Paul
Manchester
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