8 Jul 2016

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Children have more opportunities to swing, slide and climb in the outdoors these school holidays with new equipment installed at three Christchurch playgrounds.

A new play area has been built at Craighead Reserve, off Northcote Road in Papanui. The old playground at the park was about 25 years old and needed to be removed.

After consultation with the community, Christchurch City Council has installed new equipment that will cater to a wide range of ages and abilities including a multi-play unit with climbing frames, a swing set featuring a basket swing that can be used by several children at once, a bike on a spring and a stationary train with brightly-coloured carriages for younger children.

A slide and picnic tables will be added in a few weeks time but the playground is now open and attracting visitors.

All of the new equipment meets current New Zealand Playground Standards and sits on a woodchip safety surface. The playground has been moved to a different position within the reserve to provide better sightlines from the street and make it closer to the popular BMX track. The aim is to help parents supervising children on both activities.

New play equipment has been installed at The Groynes.

At The Groynes a new playground with equipment made from timber to suit the native bush environment has been installed and was opened in April. More landscaping work is underway and will be finished soon. The playground has been located further away from the new Western Belfast Bypass to reduce traffic noise and create a hub of activity around the boatshed and lake on the western side of the reserve. One of its big attractions is a rope swing made from coconut fibre rope that is a first for Christchurch.

There has also been a major upgrade at South New Brighton Park, where the old playground was vandalised and burnt down and several huge trees were lost as a result of the earthquakes. A new playground opened at the end of last year and large areas have been planted in native bush, replanting exotic specimen trees.

The landmark piece of play equipment at South New Brighton Park is a 7 metre high climbing tower that’s believed to be the only one of its kind in the South Island. Kids can climb the central net to a viewing area at around 5 metres high giving great views of the park and estuary and Port Hills.

Council City Services Project Manager Steven Gray, who finds the best way to test new equipment is to try it out himself, said Council wanted to create playgrounds where children would be challenged and have the chance to improve their physical co-ordination.

The Craighead Reserve Playground has also had a make-over.

“The primary aim of any playground is to stimulate a child’s imagination, provide excitement and adventure in safe surroundings and allow children to develop their own ideas. We think the new play areas we’ve installed will do all of these things and more.”

A lot of effort had been put into the landscape design around the new play spaces to make sure they were well integrated into the surrounding environment.

“Really there are two parts to these spaces – one being the play equipment and secondly the landscape component. We hope that people will get a lot of enjoyment out of both.”