WORK is about to begin on a £53,000 makeover for a Brighton park.

The upgrade at William Clarke Park, also known as the Patch or Nobby’s Park, is expected to take about a month.

Fences, paths and surfaces of the park will be replaced and improvements will be made to the drainage system.

Brighton and Hove City Council is working with the Friends of William Clarke Park which is also planning its own improvements.

The money to pay for the council work has come from contributions paid by developers behind building projects in the city.

Payments from developers usually form part of the conditions when planning permission is granted for larger projects.

Councillor Gill Mitchell, chairwoman of the council’s environment, transport and sustainability committee, said: “It’s a pleasure to be able to improve a park at a time when budgets are so tight.

“Getting funding from external sources and the work of these fantastic friends groups will become increasingly important in future.”

The council’s parks department must lose £600,000 of its budget, around 15 per cent, in the years leading up to 2020.

The council says this is due to budget cuts from central government.

The park is named in memory of a former councillor and railway employee, William ‘Nobby’ Clarke, who was also the mayor of Brighton in 1975.

He was the local Labour party’s full-time election agent and could usually be found in the party’s offices at 179 Lewes Road.

The park is formed from a railway cutting which led to a 900 metre-long tunnel under Elm Grove, connecting to the Kemp Town branch line and emerging at the bottom of Freshfield Road.

The line was closed in 1971 because it was never financially viable.

It was built by the London Brighton and South Coast Railway to protect its territory, in particular Brighton traffic, from rival schemes.

The viaduct was finally demolished in stages in the 1970s and early 80s and landfill was used on the railway cutting to create the park.

Work on the park is expected to be finished before the Patchfest spring festival in April.

For more information log onto williamclarkepark.org