Project update Park Street playground - August 2024

As part of the City’s Stage One community consultation for the playground renewals (between Friday 1 September and Monday 2 October 2023), we asked a variety of questions relating to the Park Street Park playground.

These responses, detailed below, formed part of the public Request for Tender, where we asked playground companies to provide multiple options which meet the communities requests (within the available budget).

The playground concepts submitted formed the basis of the Stage Two community consultation, where the community voted on their favourite design. This voting was undertaken in January 2024.

As there wasn't a standout preferred option, and the decision was made to request additional funding and postpone the project.

The budget has now been increased by 10%, and new designs sought from playground companies. The final playground design for Park Street Park will be selected based on community feedback and comments received during community consultation. Those who took part in Stage One community consultation joined the community consultation group. If you use Park Street Park and want to be part of the group, please contact us here before 9 September 2024.

Please see below the results from the first two stages of community consultation.

Community consultation – Stage 1 - results October 2023

The demographic that utilises the space the most within the community for 30 minutes to up to 2 hours, are 0-5 year olds.

We asked “What are children’s favourite element of play?” with climbing and swinging tied in first preference and sliding and pretend/ imaginative play a third and fourth standout preference.

We also asked what the children’s preferred play style was. ‘A focus on natural play elements and textures’ ranked first, with ‘Traditional style of playground with metal/plastic/ timber’ as a close second. This information, along with the available budget was included in the Request for Tender.

Community consultation – Stage 2 – results January 2024

Following on from the Tender, four conforming playgrounds were shortlisted, forming the basis for the Stage Two community consultation undertaken in January 2024, along with a comment section.

As part of this Stage Two community consultation, we received the following comments:

• We need to create something so much more interesting and better for the kids of our community
• Disappointing to see no nature elements
• Limited opportunities for child led/ unstructured play
• Please consider a higher spend allowance for park

The results of the Stage Two community consultation are shown below:

• Option 1: 28.8% (15 votes)
• Option 2: 32.7% (17 votes)
• Option 3: 17.2% (9 votes)
• Option 4: 21.2 (11 votes)

Park Street - Option 1 (January 2024 voting)

Park Street - Option 4 (January voting)