Schools and playgrounds….

Schools and playgrounds….

On Monday, Cllr Gareth Sargeson attended Bishop Monkton Primary School with a mission; to engage and seek direction from the School Council on plans for enhancing the play area at the Queen Elizabeth playing fields. The School Council consists of 2 children from each school year and they were keen to have their say during the show and tell and then during the following question and answer session. It’s fair to say, the aerial runway (or zip wire!), got a resounding thumbs up and the kids views during the session have already influenced the original design of the play area. One popular idea behind the proposed design is to allow for a wider range of children’s activities, moving from the ‘up to five years old’ we have now, to ‘up to ten or eleven’ to cater for even more children from the village.

The intention now, is to firm up the design and then seek further views from the children as the project moves forward in order to ensure we really are meeting their needs and interests. But clearly, it’s not just children we need to listen to, parents and grandparents will undoubtedly have good ideas too and we’ll plan a coffee morning shortly to get the widest possible views.

We are hoping to have all of this done and installed by the end of the year but some of the necessary funding is out of our hands and of course there are rules around council tenders, but bureaucracy aside, it’s an exciting project for the council and Gareth is working hard to ensure it goes to plan.

Thanks go to Streetscape who currently provide our safety checks on the playground for offering to provide initial designs for us to work on, finalise and then put to tender and thanks especially to Bishop Monkton School, the parents and the children for allowing us to engage with them and show the children at work.