Decision details
Play Equipment Capital Replacement Programme
Decision Maker: Corporate Director (Place)
Decision status: Approved
Is Key decision?: No
Is subject to call in?: No
Purpose:
Bath and North East Somerset Council
provides 60 formal play grounds across the district which create
opportunities for children to play outdoors, gain a sense of place
and become embedded into their neighbourhoods; at the same time
improving their physical and social development, and creating an
understanding and empathy with nature and other people.
There is an increasing recognition of the need to tackle obesity
and support mental health and wellbeing in the district and parks
provide a universal and freely accessible place where people can
relax, be active and get some fresh air. Levels of child obesity in
B&NES are better than England. However 7.8% of children in
reception year at school and 12.9% of children in Year 6 are obese.
B&NES/NHS public health practitioners tell us 'we know that
poorer health often starts in infancy and childhood, so providing
as many protective factors in childhood as possible in poorer areas
(such as good play opportunities in playgrounds and opportunities
for children to interact socially) is hugely important'. Therefore,
for many residents, going to play in a park is the introduction to
a lifetime relationship with being active in the outdoors and we'd
like to improve the stimulation and attraction to encourage
this.
Ongoing investment is needed to replace play equipment as it
reaches its end of life and/or becomes too costly to keep
repairing. This ensures that the Council continues to provide safe
and good quality public spaces for residents and meets it legal
responsibilities to ensure that play areas are safe to use. The
service has reviewed its fixed play areas (financially, and against
a play/development value) and from this we have found that we have
a play offer that is too narrow and isn't always good value for
money. By converting 8-10 play areas from fixed conventional play
equipment to what are commonly called 'natural play' opportunities,
the Council will reduce its over-reliance on expensive to maintain
equipment. These new sites will be less of a risk liability and
will be cheaper to maintain.
In addition to the 8-10 sites that we wish to re-purpose, the Parks
Service has a further fifty that will continue to require a rolling
programme of asset replacement. This annual replacement programme
is informed by a comprehensive asset register for play equipment
with projected life expectancies for all of its play assets. The
condition of all pieces of play equipment are assessed through
weekly inspections and this information informs the rolling
programme of replacements as equipment reaches its end of
life
The rolling programme of replacements has identified eight
locations where there is a need to replace play equipment in
2019-20. In addition to the need to replace end-of-life play
equipment there is an outstanding issue with entrance gates at a
number of play areas across the district. All remaining play areas
need to have self-closing gates to protect the children inside them
and to keep dogs out and gates need to be carefully designed to
ensure that they do not contain ‘finger traps’ which
pose a safety risk to children. B&NES replaced play area gates
at its most frequently used play areas in 2017/18 and it was always
envisaged that the remaining locations would see their gates
replaced in a second round of funding. Unfortunately there was no
follow-up project and since then the Parks team have continued to
receive complaints from parks’ users about dog faeces in play
areas, which is a health and reputational risk to the Council. This
Officer’s Delegated Decision therefore includes a sum for the
replacement of play area gates at nine locations across the
district.
Decision:
To fully approve capital expenditure amounting
to £325k from the provisional capital programme item Play
Equipment Replacement Programme towards the costs of:
• Replacing end of life play equipment at eight locations
across the district]
• Re-purposing up to ten play areas across the district as
part of a play area review
• Installing self-closing gates at nine play areas across the
district.
Please note that there will be a separate officer delegated
decision on the outcome of the play area review.
Alternative options considered:
Option 1 – Not replace end of life
equipment at the 8 locations identified and reduce the level of
provision; and not install self-closing gates and continue to have
dogs enter play areas.
Option 2 – for the play area review: continue to maintain the
existing number of play areas and restore pre 2019 numbers of
inspection staff. This would require the diversion of funds from
another area of the Council’s budget or from a reduction in
the park’s service elsewhere. This is arguably inequitable
when the reduction in the number of formal play areas outlined in
the play review would still safeguard the provision of a play area
within 580m of every resident in B&NES.
Publication date: 02/12/2019
Date of decision: 02/12/2019