FOI release

Children's Play Areas

Case reference FOI2025/00269

Received 5 March 2025

Published 28 March 2025

Request

1) How many council owned public children’s play areas (by which I mean parks, playgrounds, adventure playgrounds, assault courses and any other play areas) do you currently operate (latest figures available) 2) How many council owned public children’s play areas were sold, or closed, from the financial year 2009/2010 to the present date?

Response

2009/10 was the start date for the City Councils multi-million pound play area improvement programme which ran until 2015 (match funding was obtained from external funding bodies). This project included the decommissioning of a number of small, poorly located or sub-standard play areas, and their replacement with larger superior play areas serving the same catchment area. In some cases, the small, poorly located play areas were retained until the equipment came to the end of its life and then decommissioned at that point. In some of the larger parks second play areas have been added for older children. A total of 20 new play areas were built between 2009/10 and 2015/16, and 17 decommissioned between 2009/10 and 2019/20. No additional play areas have been created or decommissioned between 2019/20 and 2024/25, but there has been a rolling programme of refurbishment of existing play areas. Overall, at the start of 2009/10 there were 77 sites containing play equipment. As of March 25, there are 78, but six of these now contain more than one play area.

Documents

There are no documents for this release.

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