Redesigning a playground

Loughton Town Council are currently in the process of redesigning their park and playground equipment. With the location also a flood plain, careful planning was essential, as the council explains here

The Roding Valley Recreation Ground is a popular park area, located in a residential area of Loughton, Essex, and bordering the Roding Valley Meadows Nature Reserve. It also acts as a flood plain for the River Roding.

Changes needed
The current play area, managed by Loughton Town Council, is tired, uninspiring, dated and worn. Geographically, the vicinity around the playground floods which leaves the area unreachable through certain times of the year, and causes issues with the surfacing of the play area. This has progressively been getting worse in recent years, with the changing weather conditions. The location, being isolated within the park, also increases the risk for the potential of anti-social behaviour.
    
As such, this existing playground needs to be dismantled, along with the playground surfacing, and re-instated to the natural surroundings (pre-park condition).

New location
A new location has been identified for the redevelopment of the site and the Council went out to tender via the Government’s Contract Finder earlier this year in spring/summer, requesting tenders to complete the works on the existing play area and for a new innovative, inclusive and educational playground for ages 4–14 years to be designed and installed. Contractor’s environmental policies were also an important consideration in the Council’s evaluation process.
    
With the new site area also prone to flooding at times, a key feature of the project is for the new play area to be constructed at the same level as the existing tennis courts and running track in the recreation ground, with drainage between the mound and playground. The mound sits adjacent to where the new playground, subject to planning requirements, will be situated.

Residents’ input
The Council, being keen to include residents’ and park users’ thoughts and ideas into the final design, and with the wonderful support of local schools and Loughton Library, invited both adults and children through Public Consultations to participate in helping to choose the new play equipment. A number of images were chosen as representative of the types of play equipment available. These were listed under the following themes/headings: multi-play, swings, balance beams and trails, floor graphics, roundabouts, springy, educational/imaginary/interactive play, see saw/rocker.
    
Adults were asked to choose equipment they thought was essential; desirable, but not essential; and items they felt it was not important to include. Children were asked to select their favourite pieces of equipment. Suggestion boxes also captured ideas not represented within the images shown.
    
The Council were really delighted with the amount of time and support given by everyone, and were able to include this incredibly important feedback into the final chosen design.
   
This is an exciting time for the Council. With the tender having now been allocated to the successful contractor, Loughton Town Council are working on planning requirements.
    
All being well, the new park area, which  will be accessible throughout the year, will be constructed and open for our young residents and park users in spring 2023.