Photographs and 'artist's impressions'- such as this- in the official consultation leaflets issued by the City and County councils show the busway leaving the railway at a sharp right angle to the track (circled in red), clearly avoiding the ponds. Upon being quizzed about the unlikelihood of buses being able to negotiate such a sharp bend, City Engineer Colin Stredder, in obvious contradiction to the 'official' material, admitted to the possibility of these ponds having to be filled in to accomodate the great earthwork carrying the busway. In addition, a bus driver acquaintance assures us that his vehicle would be incapable of safely negotiating the curve as it is shown in the illustration. Sure enough, the Chester Chronicle of 7th May 1999 carried the following city council notice:

Thus the illustrations in the official consultation material would indeed appear to have been misleading and inaccurate.
After joining the park, the course of the busway is then shown running between two lines of greenery behind the houses in Northgate Village- where the little red bus is at the bottom of the illustration. Curiously, this piece of land doesn't actually exist- the back gardens of these properties terminate at a fence seperating them from a steep drop to the railway sidings below. We gather that the plan is to acquire- at unknown cost- this section of sidings from Railtrack, which will then be filled in to provide space for the busway. Strangely, however, the sidings continue to appear in the illustration.

The former park may also serve as a depot for building materials and heavy vehicles during the construction of the busway, being among the very few places offering easy vehicular access to the old railway- albeit through heavily-populated residential areas. This fascinating photograph from May 1959 shows how much this part of the old railway has changed. A signal box- the Chester East Box- once stood here (seen on left of photo). The right-hand branch is the modern course of the Sustrans cycleway while the left-hand, which headed for the now-vanished Northgate Station, has gone without trace, to be replaced by the above-illustrated park and the houses of Northgate Village. Interestingly, the above-mentioned ponds actually existed at this time, marooned among the railway lines! Note too the allotments on the right-hand side of the picture. (Many thanks to Ralph Hodgkinson for this photograph)