The Venetian Waterways in Great Yarmouth are to be filled with model boats this weekend ahead of the next phase of a major facelift for the attraction.
On Sunday the Great Yarmouth Model Boat Club will be holding its annual gala from 10am.
It will see a whole flotilla of model boats sailing at the historic waterways on North Drive and they will be joined by a large convoy of radio controlled model trucks driving round the park.
Sunday’s event is a day before the waterways are to be closed off to the public as part of a £2.7m restoration project led by Great Yarmouth Borough Council.
The whole of the site will be closed from Monday, July 23 in order to ensure the safety of the public and project volunteers and staff during the work.
This will see the Boating Lake and Island Café refurbished and brought back into use, bridges and shelters restored, and reinstating the original planting scheme from 1928.
It had been planned to close the site from Monday, July 16, but that was changed and put back a week.
Restoration work is taking place over the next 12 months and is funded through the Heritage Lottery Fund and Big Lottery Fund, plus further support from the borough council, New Anglia LEP and the government.
Steve Dean, club chairman, said: “People locally will know that work is about to commence on the restoration of this unique Grade II listed site and we as a club have supported this project since its inception.
“There will be a fantastic transformation across the park during the autumn and winter months and the re-opening in the early summer of 2019 will be cause for celebration.
“This project has taken an enormous amount of background work to bring to fruition and we look forward to continuing being a very active user and attraction in the restored park.
“We would like to thank council and the primary contractor for making arrangements so that we can go ahead with our evening event on Thursday, August 9 and our sailing day on August bank holiday Monday.”
Barry Coleman, of the council’s economic development committee, said: “We ask for people’s patience during the works and the site closure, which is necessary to ensure public safety.”
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