The new-look Uhuru Park will reopen to the public in December with no entry fee charged to access the recreational parks, Nairobi Governor Johnson Sakaja has said.
The public park, together with Central Park, has been undergoing a facelift since being closed to the public last February by the Nairobi Metropolitan Services (NMS).
The recreational park has been undergoing a major facelift since September last year aimed at upgrading it to international standards.
Consequently, members of the public will access a broad range of amenities including a playground, outdoor gym, jogging tracks, botanical trails and an outdoor library.
The park further boasts a botanical garden, amusement park, boating pond, lily pond, food court and restaurant in addition to different monuments with the renovation coming 52 years after the green space was first opened to the public.
Adjacent to Uhuru Park is the 23-acre Central Park which is also being upgraded to a world-class recreational park and will host a variety of tree species.
The rehabilitation also involved the restoration of the Nyayo and Jomo Kenyatta Memorial monuments erected within the park.
The project is part of the ‘I Love my Green City’ programme by NMS in collaboration with the Kenya Defence Forces over the last year geared toward improving, rehabilitating and retrofitting urban parks and green spaces in Nairobi.
Speaking while flagging off the World Tourism Day at City Hall, Governor Sakaja said the reopening of the park is just the beginning of the process of rehabilitating all the public parks in the county.
He said that his administration was in the process of reclaiming all social places that had been grabbed and repurposing them back to their initial use.
“Uhuru Park will be reopened to the public in December 2022 and no charges will be levied on Nairobi residents who wish to visit the park,” said Mr Sakaja.
“This is just the beginning. The county is in the process of rehabilitating all the parks across the county where our people can rest and enjoy the environment,” he added.
The City Hall boss said the reclaimed social places will be made available to the youth for use to exploit their creative talents.
“Some scrupulous people have grabbed some of these social amenities areas; we are reclaiming them, improving them and will create new ones to ensure every sub-county has at least a recreational facility,” he said.
The governor reiterated his commitment to support the creative economy, saying that he is in discussion with the national government to zero rate music and studio equipment in order to support growth and the expansion of the creative industry in Nairobi and Kenya at large. BY DAILY NATION