ALTHOUGH IT'S STILL in the conceptual stage, the planning to date for

Shelburne's new Fiddle Park strikes us as being right on track.

Several alternative plans for the new site in the town's southeastern outskirts had important common features which ought to impress fiddle fans who have had to contend with the barebones essentials found in the original park to the north.

At its last meeting before this week's Canadian Open Championship Old Time Fiddlers' Contest (the official title), Shelburne council voted to have a brochure produced for circulation to campers at this year's contest outlining plans for the new park on the Second Line of Amaranth Township.

Conceptual plans for the new park, located on a partially wooded site near 30 Sideroad, show such permanent facilities as a pavilion, washrooms, seasonal campsites with electrical hookups and even playgrounds and nature trails.

The existing park has been the subject of widespread criticism because of its lack of trees or permanent facilities.

The need for the new facility should be fairly obvious to most residents of Dufferin County.

Although it has not always been the case, Dufferin has only one publicly owned campground within its boundaries, that being the Lions-operated facility at Grand Valley. (The Credit Valley Conservation authority once had a campground at Monora Park when it was used as a conservation area.)

Whatever the reason, visitors to Dufferin will otherwise find no provincial, county or townowned campground but must rely on private facilities, many of which are aimed at seasonal campers rather than transients.

The apparent aim of those planning the new Fiddle Park is to make it a true multi-purpose facility that would operate spring, summer and fall.

To this end, all the conceptual diagrams make provision for electrical hookups and public washrooms as well as for the normal things like picnic tables and fire pits.

The only thing missing would be a swimming hole, likely because the location lacks a watercourse.

It will be interesting, indeed, to see which of the several alternative plans now being studied will be selected and how successful the new park will be as a magnet for tourism.

Ideally, the new park would provide inspiration elsewhere, with the provincial Ministry of Natural Resources providing campgrounds at the Mono Cliffs and Boyne River provincial parks and Credit Valley Conservation installing one somewhere in the Island Lake Conservation Area on Orangeville's eastern outskirts.