A brand new children’s play park has opened in the largest village in the Highlands – and it includes a plaque dedicated to a Lochaber girl whose battle with cancer touched everyone’s hearts.
Daisy Belle Nicol, from Corpach near Fort William, was diagnosed with an aggressive brain tumour when she was just nine months old.
But sadly, despite going through surgery to have the tumour removed and intensive chemotherapy, the little girl died in her parents’ arms in October last year, aged two.
A plaque has been constructed in her memory at what will be known as “Daisy’s Peekaboo Garden,” a fenced play area for infants at the new park.
Local resident Damian Macdonald, 33, whose cousin Paul Macdonald created the plaque, said about 150 people were at the play park at Banavie Road next to the Gaelic school for the official opening at the weekend.
Mr Macdonald, who has three young children who use the park, said: “All of the play parks here have been declining for the last 20 years. It’s going to make a massive difference for generations of kids to come.”
The opening of the new facilities follows three years of hard graft by the Caol Play committee to attract sufficient funding for the project.
The total cost of the new facilities is about £190,000, including a £100,000 grant from WREN, a not-for-profit business that awards community grants, as well as funding from Highland Council’s LEADER programme which is aimed at rural development.
Mr Macdonald also hopes to start plans for a second phase to the park later this year, which he says would take the overall project cost to about £300,000.
