A new park is now open and ready to use below the canal.
New Castle County officials with the help of Girl Scout Troop 78 cut the ribbon officially opening Southern New Castle County Park near Middletown.
The 44-acre park has 1.5 miles of pathways, a large playground area, eight pickleball courts, two tennis courts, two basketball courts, and two multipurpose fields.
The park also features a sledding hill and acres of open space that will be maintained as a meadow.
"People need fun places to engage in activities and have a good time. I know that Price Park which is a Middletown Town Park is fantastic, but it's very crowded. You go on a beautiful day, and it's packed, this hopefully will alleviate some of that crowding. We're proud of this. We're proud that it's right in the middle of a whole bunch of neighborhoods, but it's also tremendously beautiful. You look around and most of what you see are trees and fields so I feel like we got this right," said County Executive Matt Meyer.
The park also has a small picnic pavilion, and a parking lot when you turn in off of Shallcross Lake Road.
The park is in County Councilman David Carter’s district.
"I just really look forward to every time that we can have a common facility and more services to meet the growing population down here. It's a long way to go to catch up all the way, but little by little we just got to keep at it,” said Carter. “I’ll walk out of here and get back to work on the new paramedic station."
Planning for the park began in 2019, and construction started last year. According to county officials, it cost in the range of $7 million dollars.
