Plan for Play Newsletter – July/August

Hello, and welcome to the latest issue of our Plan for Play newsletter.

Once again, it’s been a busy few weeks for our Plan for Play team – as you can probably tell from the fact this newsletter is a couple of weeks later than normal.

The reason for that is I wanted to be able to capture as much of the good news as possible: and to be able to outline the next steps for some of our upcoming major refurbishments.

Major upgrades taking shape

Work is nearly complete at Bourne Valley – the latest of our major projects – with almost all the new equipment now successfully installed. It looks fantastic and I’m really pleased that we’ve been able to incorporate elements of the natural surroundings as well as ideas from the local community, into the final refurbishment.

Putting the ideas of families, children and young people, into our designs is something that the whole team is incredibly passionate about because we know just how loved play areas are and we really want to deliver something that the whole community can be proud of.

Bourne Valley will formally re-open in the next couple of weeks: and we’ll announce a date on our socials and Plan for Play page once all the work has been complete.

The team is also about to get started in Noyce Gardens on a £180,000 improvement – with four distinct zones being created to ensure there is ample space and opportunity for everyone from toddlers to teens.

At Noyce Gardens we’ve been able to get local children directly involved and they’ve created some fantastic signs as well as painted stones for the walkway that will mean their contribution to the refurbishment is permanently remembered.

Work will begin at Noyce on 21 August.

Following that we’ll have teams at Kings Park, Mallard Road, Muscliff Park, Hamworthy Park, and Oakdale sites, for more significant refurbishments. We’ll keep you updated on those as we go.

Improvements happening across BCP

Whenever we post about our play improvements on social media it is always heartening to see the incredible positivity that we get in response.

But we’re also aware that, for many, what matters most is what is happening to their local play area and I completely get that.

We’re rolling out improvements to around 100 play areas across Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole – with more than £4.6million being invested, but we’re also always exploring options for how we can do even more.

Our teams are continually out and about not only delivering improvements but speaking to community groups and looking at how we can work together to go even further. A brilliant example of that is at Churchill Gardens and we should have some fantastic news to bring you on that shortly.

Recent improvement work has taken place at the likes of Pergins Way, Arne Crescent and Sherborn Crescent (Verity Park) – to name just a few. If we haven’t been to your local play area yet, don’t worry, the likelihood is we will be there soon.

How to stay updated

With work really ramping up over the next couple of months, we will have no shortage of good news to share.

All of our updates go onto our BCP Council social media pages, as well as the BCP Parks and Open Spaces socials. That’s where we share our most frequent updates, but we also have our Weekly News resident email bulletin and this website which is the first place to see our final designs and start dates for future works.

I can’t wait to share our next round of upgrades and re-openings: the next couple of months are going to be something pretty special!