Playground redevelopment to be designed by kids

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Popular Battersea-Park adventure playground is to be renovated shortly with the children who will be using it to be deciding what equipment to be installed

Popular Battersea-Park adventure playground is to be renovated shortly with the children who will be using it to be deciding what equipment to be installed. The council will be uploading images of potential equipment the children could be enjoying, then by using a poll, decide which equipment should be installed.
In January the council decided to invest £200,000 into the park renovation. Potential new equipment includes; rope swings, chain ladders, aerial walkways, tube slides, scramble nets, zip wires and fireman’s poles.

The new equipment will reduce to maintenance cost of the park, as the current wood based playground requires staffing for supervision of the children. It is estimated that this renovation will save the tax payers approximately £130,000 a year. It will also allow the playground to be kept open all the time the park is open, 7 days a week. The current wooden playground costs the tax payer £225,000 a year to maintain, with the majority of the cost spent on staffing.

Children’s services spokesman Cllr Kathy Tracey said:

“Young people who use the adventure playground are in the best position to tell us what’s good and what’s not so that is why we are actively engaging with them to ascertain their views.

“Their opinions will help us decide what to install in the adventure playground”.
“Our aim is to carry on providing an exciting and challenging adventure playground for youngsters. We will be doing this at a time when many other local authorities are actually closing theirs down.

“Keeping the playground in Battersea Park open and avoiding the need to charge a modest admission fee are the two outcomes our residents told us they wanted. We have listened carefully to their views and fully addressed both points.”

With local boroughs having to close playgrounds in cost cutting measures, this shows a positive step by the Wandsworth council. The council also provides a grant worth £125,000 a year to a local charity which provides an adventure playground on Wandsworth Common specifically aimed at children with disabilities. Wandsworth manages more than 200 playgrounds and play areas in parks, commons and housing estates. Over the past four years £2.5 million has been spent on maintaining and improving these facilities for young people.