Fans of Whalley Range’s Alexandra Park are hoping it will be second time lucky with a bid to create £4.5M worth of improvements.

Members of the Friends of Alexandra Park say they are ‘delighted’ the council has submitted another bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund for £1.9M after last year’s bid failed.

If successful it would be added to £2.1M of council funds and £500,000 from Sport England to create a £4.5M package of funding.

And though the bid is substantially less than the £6.2M plan which got turned down last year, it still has the Friends group keeping their fingers crossed.

"We are delighted the council has resubmitted this bid, even though it is a reduced one," said Phil Benson-Hannam, vice chairman of the Friends group.

"It probably means the focus will be less on restoring the park to its full Victorian grandeur and more about improving existing community and sports facilities."

Members of the Friends group were left disappointed when last year’s bid was turned down, despite the HLF identifying it as a ‘high priority’.

Top of the Friends group’s wishlist is the renovation of the park lodge, to become a meeting place for community groups in Whalley Range.

Proposals put forward by the council include improving tennis and cricket facilities and refurbishing the children’s centre.

Other buildings in the park’s depot area would also be demolished or refurbished and a project development officer would also be appointed to act as a link between residents and the council to decide how the money is spent.

A verdict on the first stage of this year’s bid is expected in June and if Alexandra Park gets through to the second round of funding allocation, further research will be carried out to get people’s views on what improvements should be made. That information would be submitted a year from now, with the projects awarded HLF cash announced in June 2011.

A council report on the bid says that the state of the park is ‘substantially beyond’ the resources of the council’s routine maintenance budget and that some of the park’s Victorian features have been eroded by change, with the ‘basic infrastructure’ of the park also in need of repair.

Councillor Mike Amesbury, executive member for culture and leisure said: "Alexandra Park is one of the earliest and most complete Victorian Parks in Manchester and as such is of significant importance to our national heritage.

"It is vital that we restore and preserve the park for future generations and are confident that our latest bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund makes an extremely strong case for funding."