Play area refurbishment programme

Since 2003, Parks and Open Spaces have been implementing a £500,000 per year borough wide play area refurbishment programme with the aim of providing new, innovative and safe play facilities to all parts of the borough. Sites have been selected based on a report prepared by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents RoSPA. This report identified potential hazards that existed throughout theborough’s play areas.

Sites were selected based on the scale of potential hazards with the most degraded sites being addressed first. The end of March 2007 will see the conclusion of the play refurbishment programme with the Councils target of at least 77% of play areas in the borough meeting the LEAP standards. The London Borough of Richmond uponThames is committed to providing excellent, safe and challenging play facilities and in addition to nine sites being completely refurbished, six completely new play areas have or will be built.

Playgrounds are visually inspected on a daily basis by our grounds maintenance contractor Service Team to ensure they are clean and tidy. They are also operationally inspected to ensure they are safe and secure on a monthly basis by our contracted play area specialist – Recreational Supply Services Limited. Finally they are annually inspected to provide a complete safety check and ensure compliance with international safety standards by an independent third party. Richmond Council goes to these lengths so that we can be 100% confident that play areas in the borough are as safe as they can possibly be.

If you come across any problems, vandalism, graffiti, broken glass and debris within a Council playground, please report it to Parks and Open Spaces Team.