Environment Secretary Rt Hon Hilary Benn MP recently joined me in a visit to Cotteridge Park in Bournville to see the work that local volunteers were doing in preserving their park.

Cotteridge Park, which is one of the many Victorian parks and takes up over 22 acres of land, nearly faced closure in 1997 after a threat from the council to de-commission the park after budget cuts were announced.

However outcry from local residents and park users led them to run a campaign that gained a lot of attention from local media and the council decided against decommissioning. Since then "The Friends of Cotteridge Park" meet on a monthly basis to discuss ongoing upkeep of the park and run events for local residents.

Mr Benn said "This is such a beautiful park and it would have been a terrible shame had it been closed. From the stories I have heard from the users of the park it is clearly an important part of the community. The Park is still facing problems because of limited funds but the hardworking people here are not going to give up"

The friends of Cotteridge park help run Cotteridge Community, Music, Arts and Dance Festival (CoCoMAD) and do ongoing work with local schools to help provide the park with an orchard, let the children engage in art projects and build skating ramps.

I am glad that Birmingham has such a fantastic example the work that a group of hard-working, enthusiastic and committed people can do make a real difference to their community and I was delighted to be able to show this to Hilary.