The residents of Salisbury Park have won an almost 20-year-old battle, with the garden that they fought so long for finally to be inaugurated on Thursday. The new garden spread on 3.5 acres lies adjacent to the old Gool Poonawala garden at Salisbury Park, which is one of Pune’s upmarket areas.
It all started in 2004 when the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) issued a notification to de-reserve a plot of land originally earmarked for a garden and handed it over to a local builder. About 300 residents organised a rally in protest under the banner ‘Salisbury Park Residence Forum’ and filed a case in court which went on for several years.
The garden has been developed on the lines of a topiary, with the trees and shrubs styled into shapes of animals and cartoons. There is a separate area for exercise with gym bars, a skating rink, flower beds, an amphitheatre and more.
Ashok Ghorpade, chief superintendent of the garden department, said that the PMC has completed all the work and that the garden is ready to be opened to the public. “We spent around ₹2.50 crore on developing the garden. Architect Avani Lodha from Aseem Gokarn Harwansh (AGH) Landscapes planned the garden. The entire garden area is now more than six-acre (Poonawala garden and new Salisbury garden).”
Source : Hindustan Times
