Go ahead given for Major Playground Upgrade

The project was identified in the last strategic review of the Centre’s needs in January 2022 as being of major importance because the capacity of the Playground had been reduced due to health and safety concerns; the capacity of the two sets of 1970’s vintage swings had been reduced by 50% to provide enough safety space for users. More recently the adventure scramble trail, installed around 2000 had to be removed because the wooden timbers were rotting and becoming unsafe. 

The last time the Playground was improved (apart from 1 piece, the spinner, in 2017 for the Bee Able group), was in 2011 when village resident, Becky Gatenby, led a CA project team to install a lot of the equipment which is used extensively today… by over 80,000 visitors every year.

Playground equipment is expensive, so fund raising by the CA commenced immediately although a target wasn’t known as we didn’t know what Users would want. Consultation with Users and search for funds commenced. We also made savings on our regular activities – the solar panels we had installed with grants saved us over £8000 in electricity charges- this money is going towards the project.

What quickly became apparent was that Users aspirations had moved up several notches and to accommodate the desires the Playground area was not large enough… we would have to maximise the space we had available and financially ‘cut our cloth to size’. We also started talking to Monk Fryston Parish Council to see if they could help as they had funds for capital projects from the sale of the Quarry allotments in 2007.

As time moved on – into 2025 what also became apparent was the cost of providing an all singing all dancing 21st Century Playground was out of our reach… the prices of full playground schemes was , say it slowly ….  between £180,000 and £250,000 

The CA Trustees and committee had invested a lot of time into this project and some equipment and other facilities around the Playground and Recreation Ground had deteriorated, trees had grown and become dangerous and were starting to undermine play Equipment, the Car Park and the Community Centre. Also, the abnormal weather events had caused ground heave – creating potential trip hazards - a lot of work was needed.

To make the project work we had to take pragmatic decisions and it became a multi – phase project.

The 1st Phase is put things right and maximise the space available for Playground activities, thus restoring play capacity whilst doing whatever we could to support our sustainability ethos.

For full details, a update will be posted soon on the CA Website News 

Phase 1 – Playground and Recreation area Restoration and Upgrade Pre Development Phase – info coming soon.

The 2nd Phase of our pragmatic approach was to retain the best of our existing Play Equipment and install a variety of new equipment to provide more novelty and challenge to all age groups. Above all, everything has to comply with all safety legislation. 

The 3rd Phase is to refurbish retained existing Play Equipment – Broadly this means painting by volunteers but some will need to be done by specialists. We have a few very loyal and dedicated volunteers but we have some spare paint brushes – so if you feel you would like to help – and any help would be very welcome – please get in touch. We expect this work to be done in June – when the weather is good.

Overall, the cost of all this work will be around £110,000.

We now believe we are in a position to fund the various phases of the project following some good news, support and generosity from the National Grid, in the form of Yorkshire Green, and Monk Fryston Parish Council.

We hope it will all be done in time for an official opening in July.