£165k Facelift For Wandsworth Common Playground Gets Started
Major refurb for younger kids includes modern new play equipment
Work is about to get underway on a £165,000 revamp of a toddler and younger children’s playground on Wandsworth Common.
The children’s playground at Chivalry Road is to undergo a major facelift that will see new landscaping and new safe play surfaces along with modern new play equipment, including timber swings, slides, see-saws, climbing frames, benches and picnic tables.
Work begins on April 23 and means the playground will be closed for around six weeks while the work is being carried out. During this time children and their families will be able to use the three nearby playgrounds next to The Skylark Café, St Mark’s Church and at the Windmill Nursery.
Environment spokesman Cllr Steffi Sutters said, “The designs for this playground and the play equipment it will feature were chosen by local people when we staged our public consultation last year so these improvements should be very popular with local families and our youngest residents.
“Combined with the improvements at the nearby ball games area which is aimed at slightly older children and teenagers, it means this corner of Wandsworth Common has something to offer young people of all ages.”
The playground is managed on behalf of the council by its leisure and culture contractor Enable Leisure and Culture and funded via the Wandsworth Local Fund (WLF), which holds cash levied by the council on housing developers to help pay for community and neighbourhood infrastructure improvements in the borough.
Over the past three years more than £7.2m in WLF money has been spent on local improvement initiatives including schemes to support safer communities, employment opportunities for young people, better pavements and improved playgrounds.
Other WLF-funded schemes include Christmas lights in the town centres, new LED street lights, a major road and pavement resurfacing programme, repainting Earlsfield Station railway bridge, refurbishing Putney Vale Cemetery and the Quest project providing intensive support to get young people into work.
Several public realm improvements will be carried out to smarten up shopping streets, including Putney High Street, Bedford Hill and Bellevue Road.
And several playgrounds have or will be revamped, including Upper Tooting Park, Godley Gardens, Swaby Gardens, Leaders Gardens, King George’s Park and Battersea Park. Improvements are also being made at Falcon Park, Furzedown Rec and at Fred Wells Gardens.
A new guide has been published offering local people advice on how they can nominate community schemes for funding. It’s available at all local libraries or can be read online at www.wandsworth.gov.uk/WLF.
April 18, 2019