Since Dean Castle Country Park opened 30 years ago it has become one of Scotland’s most popular country parks.

The number of visitors to the park has increased at an incredible rate over the last year. In 2010, over 550,000 visits were recorded, placing the park as the fifth most visited in Scotland. This year’s figures are set to exceed 900,000 visits.

The rise in visitor numbers is a welcome boost for the local economy and to address the park’s growing popularity and secure its reputation as the area’s top visitor attraction, East Ayrshire Council has prepared a Management and Development Plan, which outlines a range of actions and improvements as the way forward for the park between now and 2016.

Following approval of the Management and Development Plan at Cabinet this week, Councillor Douglas Reid, Leader of the Council said: "Dean Castle Country Park is a local treasure which attracts visitors from all over Scotland and beyond. The time is right for us to look at the way the park is managed and to adopt a more innovative and creative approach to the development and promotion of this facility to ensure we continue to attract a healthy flow of visitors in the future."

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Following an extensive consultation process, the finalised Plan proposes three distinct management units each focusing on a different aspect of the Park: Historic Management; Urban Farm Management and Countryside Management.

Councillor Reid added: "We will manage the landscape around the castle in a more historically sympathetic fashion; we will develop an urban farm to help develop a breeding programme which will create a more cost effective and vibrant animal area and focus on bringing the extensive woodland back under positive management. We will also extend our core path network to include interpretive trails and links from the park to neighbouring attractions. We also plan to conduct an audit of existing buildings within the park to assess their suitability for current use, to ensure they are fit for purpose."

Councillor Jim Buchanan, Spokesperson for Delivering Community Regeneration said: "Many people genuinely love spending time in this beautiful green space. The Management and Development Plan will enhance everything Dean Park has to offer and I am confident that by next year we will attract 1 million visitors. This is a fantastic achievement considering in 2009 we had fewer than 300,000 visitors. Kilmarnock has many assets we should be proud of and these figures prove that many people realise that the town and its parks are well worth visiting."

(GK)