Good news for playground supplier’s
Yesterday Children’s secretary Ed Balls announced plans to invest £235m in building new exciting play areas for children, as part of The National Play Strategy.
The strategy forms part of The Children’s Plan, which is designed to provide local authorities with the capital to provide new, or rebuild existing play areas for children in their local area. Most local authorities will receive £1.1m to do this, however 10 ‘Pathfinder’ authorities will receive approximately £2.5m to build state of the art, staffed adventure playgrounds.
“We know that outdoor play has many benefits to children and parents tell us that it is key to a happy and enjoyable childhood. Play is good for children, good for families and good for communities. The best people to say what is exciting and fun are children, which is why we want them to help make the decisions about play services in their local neighbourhoods.”
The plan encourages local children to be as much a part of the planning process as possible, feeling that they will help create fantastic sites that they can safely enjoy with friends.
The capital will be allocated to local authorities in April 2009 and has specifically been made available earlier than planned in an attempt to stem the effects of the current economic downturn.
Although this isn’t directly related to school suppliers of playgrounds and outdoor environments, there has to be something said for their knowledge and experience in this area. Many local authorities will be looking to designers & suppliers of school playgrounds for help, advice and to actually carry out the work, based on their wealth of experience in this area.
So we see this as a really positive sign for suppliers in the industry. Those that aren’t already in contact with their local authorities, really should be!
