This Land, Your Land

The first state park designated for the Cumberland County/Fayetteville area lies undeveloped four years down the road with little to look forward to in the day of a state budget in crisis, The Fayetteville Observer says.

The state paid $5.6 million for nearly 1,400 acres for Carvers Creek Sandhills State Park in 2005 to preserve one of the last large, untouched tracts of longleaf pines in the state. To date no development work has been done.

"Carvers Creek is hit relatively hard by this budget," Charlie Peek, a spokesman for the parks division, tells The Observer. "The development has been slowed by the budget. We’re committed to it. It’s just going to take some time."

The park land is 1,395 acres off Ramsey Street, not far from Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. The Nature Conservancy is expected to donate Long Valley Farm, a part of the former Rockefeller estate near Spring Lake, to the state next month and double the size of Carvers Creek, The Observer says. Additional land may also be available.