Rollout of our £9m programme of play area upgrades continues apace

Lake Meadows in Billericay and Northlands Park in Pitsea next to get a fresh new look

by
Cllr Jeff Henry, Cabinet Member for Health, Wellbeing, Leisure, Arts & Culture

Works have started on brand-new play areas for Lake Meadows in Billericay and Northlands Park in Pitsea, as we enter the second year of the Conservative's £9m Play Review, a 10-year programme of investment in our borough's play areas, to create a network of high-quality play facilities for residents across the borough. The new facility at Northlands Park, will offer over 40 different play elements and includes varied equipment that will allow over 200 children to play together. This will include a new ball court for football and basketball, an outdoor gym, as well as other exciting ball games. Meanwhile, Lake Meadows will cater for all ages and abilities and feature over 130 play opportunities, allowing over 180 children to play together simultaneously.

The play areas proceed new skateparks at both locations, which will come later this year and follows other recent improvements to the parks' other facilities and there are also a number of events for the local community that take place on a regular basis, such as Park Run and ParkPlay.

"The variety of play options will mean our youngsters are spoilt for choice and I cannot wait for these new play areas to be open and to see how much they will be enjoyed by the children and families of our borough."

Both Lake Meadows and Northlands Park are fantastic parks and this investment will only make them even better for residents. The variety of play options will mean our youngsters are spoilt for choice and I cannot wait for these new play areas to be open and to see how much they will be enjoyed by the children and families of our borough.

As with all these schemes, the designs were developed with local residents, who chose the selected design out of the shortlisted options at face-to-face consultations last year. Basildon Conservatives want to make sure our borough's youngsters have some of the best play facilities in the country available to them locally and that is what we are delivering.

Our Play Review has meant modern, high quality play areas have already been built and are being enjoyed by our communities at a number of sites, including flagship ones such as Wat Tyler Country Park and Langdon Hills Recreation Ground, and we're investing £900,000 a year to continue that over the next 8 years.

"Basildon Conservatives want to make sure our borough's youngsters have some of the best play facilities in the country available to them locally and that is what we are delivering."

The new play areas are being built on the existing play sites, meaning they will be closed until works have been completed, which is expected to be the end of February/beginning of March.