Bridgnorth District Council’s leisure services have been working hard over the past year to ensure residents of Alveley, Much Wenlock, Broseley, Albrighton and Farlow get a well deserved present just in time for Christmas.
In June, the countryside and greenspace team were awarded £200,000 to spend on improving play opportunities throughout the district.
Consultation in the five villages began straight away to ensure all of the projects would be in the ground by Christmas.
Amy Davies, the council’s greenspace support officer, said: “It was always a concern of ours to get the first five play areas completed in time for Christmas. We definitely didn’t want children to have to wait until after the holidays as many of these projects have been going on for years.
“We have had to work hard consulting each community and interpreting their visions in order to produce the play area they imagined. It has definitely all worked out for the best as there are five villages which will benefit from a new play area over the Christmas holidays.
“Everybody has been great to work with and I have been delighted by the amount of help and encouragement found from working on each of the projects. Hopefully, the children and young people will get years of enjoyment from all of the play areas.”
The funding covers the creation or improvement of 10 play areas in total. Work has already begun on creating two natural play areas in Ditton Priors and Claverley, which will show that play spaces can be created with a small budget using natural equipment resulting in an equally challenging and exciting space for children as a fixed play area.
The funding has also been used to take play schemes to rural areas. The existing Xtreme scheme run by the sports development team has been extended to cover rural areas in order to provide teenagers with activities such as skate ramps, boxing and football amongst other things.
The Reccy Rangers scheme has also started up again but is this time aimed at younger children and involves activities such as art, nature and free play.
Amy Davies said: “Both schemes have been a great success. We missed summer this year but hopefully next year will see activities provided throughout the whole of the district and not focused just on the larger towns.
“We have also organised activities over the Christmas holidays which is something we do not currently do with our existing play schemes”.