Highland Council staff and Members working hard to address condition of play parks

Highland Council staff and Members are working together locally to address the condition of play parks, especially where these have been closed for safety reasons.

The Council recognises the work of communities to improve play areas and their ongoing help is very welcomed.

To date, 40 sites across Highland are closed pending equipment repair or new safety surfacing replacement.

The Council has 339 play parks and over 2,500 pieces of play equipment. The provision of play parks is not a statutory duty, but the inspection and maintenance of equipment once installed, is mandatory.

Play parks are subject to daily, weekly, fortnightly or monthly inspection based on usage and risk and an annual inspection is carried out by a qualified play park inspector.

Highland Council recognises the positive effects play parks and their social benefits have on children’s mental health and well-being. This has been particularly highlighted by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns.

Ongoing inspections have raised a number of safety concerns at some sites, which has resulted in play equipment being removed or, as a last resort, the park being temporarily closed until it can be made safe to reopen.

Highland Council recently made decisions that will help direct more money towards play parks:

• the Council agreed in January this year that local area committees could allocate any unspent COVID ward funding towards play parks and invested a further £240k to make sure each Ward had the same amount of Covid ward funding available
• a further £100K is earmarked for play areas and is still to be allocated
• other local sources of funding were identified and include e.g. coastal communities funding, Common Good funds, any appropriate national funding streams as well as local donations
• the Council also agreed in a collaborative budget in March 2021 to allocate a further £100K for each of its 21 wards for discretionary spending (£2.1m) which could also be invested in play parks

In January the Council agreed a new approach to take forward play park improvements. This involves staff and Members working closely together to discuss and agree priorities, identify funding sources and to consider any support available from volunteers or community bodies.

Highland Council is keen to work with community groups to keep sites open. An early example of this is the community effort in Beauly by residents; they organised play grade bark to be installed and had their site reopened.

Following agreement by Ward 12 Members to pay for play grade bark from the Ward budget, materials are being purchased to enable the parks in the Ward to reopen.

And in Easter Ross, Area Committee Members have already agreed to spend part of their unspent COVID discretionary ward funding on maintaining play parks, supported with money from Kiltearrn Community Council who applied for wind farm community funding.

Chair of the Communities and Place Committee, Cllr Allan Henderson, said: “These ambitious Highland Health & Prosperity Strategy investments are very much open to local councillors and community initiatives on how the money is invested in their own community.

“Many have indicated play parks are a priority, which ties in nicely with the health theme for youngsters and their hard-pressed parents.”

Leader of the Opposition Cllr Raymond Bremner added: “The additional money for Wards will enable local decision making to be made where there are local priorities.”