PLANS for the re-development of Lloyd Park are set to be submitted to the local authority.

The Project Board, which is over-seeing the re-vamp of the Walthamstow park, was due to make a final decision on the designs yesterday (Wednesday) in order to submit a planning application to Waltham Forest Borough Council next week.

Once the application has been received by the council, there will be a statutory period of 21 days for comments. The council’s planning committee is expected to make its decision in April.

The £6.1million project, using money from a lottery bid and the council, will include four zones including, a heritage restoration zone, an island and moat area, a hub area and fields in Aveling Park.

If the stage two designs are accepted by both the council and lottery, contracts could be drawn up and work is expected to start in January next year and be finished by March 2011.

A petition to save Waltham Forest Theatre situated in Lloyd Park closed on Tuesday after collecting (279 - update on tues) signatures.

Teenage twin brother Nicky and Lee Caulfield started a campaign last year because they wanted the dilapidated theatre to be refurbished rather than demolished as part of the Lloyd Park project.

But speaking at a Walthamstow West Community Council meeting last week, at Chapel End Junior School, in Roberts Road, portfolio holder for leisure arts and culture Cllr Geraldine Reardon told the Caulfield brothers that the theatre “not fit for purpose” and that it would be pulled down as part of the project.

She said: "It is not a theatre of quality, it is a hole.

"We need a better location for a theatre where the health and safety of visitors can be ensured, not in a park where people don't want to go at night. We need a proper performance space and that isn't it. I am pleased that it is going."