At last night’s full council meeting South Cambridgeshire District Council approved the grant of up to £261,000 to Cambridge Sport Lakes Trust for the re-development of the Visitor Centre.

Councillors were informed at the start of the debate that the County Council was ‘minded’ to go halves with SCDC on the grant required (as they own all the land between the two larger lakes), though for various reasons they had not yet made a firm commitment.

There was a variety of opinions voiced, starting with Cllr Ray Manning, the leader of the council, who admitted he had been in favour of closing the park last time round, now championing the case for the grant but allowing everyone in his party a free vote on it.

As predicted, Cllr Deborah Roberts spoke against it, and many councillors had misgivings about the size of the grant but in the end the vote went 30 for the grant, 12 against, with 4 abstentions.