Above: New play equipment for Litton in Derbyshire
P.L.A.Y (Playground for Littons’ Active Youth) have been awarded £49,839 from the Community Spaces programme. Here’s Julie Nash’s story so far on the group’s progress with creating a new play facility…
P.L.A.Y is a small committee of mums, who, in response to the Litton Parish Plan, joined together in July 2007 to raise funds for a new playground.
Two old swings were all the play facilities Litton had, so in addition to a new playground, we also hoped to create a small sensory garden to make it usable by all.
We began by getting together quotes from playground companies, to ascertain how much the project was going to cost. Once we knew our target amount, we started local fundraising and held a Race Night (made £1,351) and a Safari Supper (£425) just to name a few.
We have raised over £10,000 locally to date, and gained grants from the Bingham Trust and D.D.D.C. With advice from Derbyshire Dales CVS, we applied to the Changing Spaces/Community Spaces programme.
We were thrilled to get through the first Stage of the application, and grateful to meet with Janice Burley, our Facilitator, whose help, guidance and moral support has been a lifeline through the whole of the second stage application.
It took us the best part of 6 months to complete the form correctly and, to our delight, we were notified in October ‘09 that we had been awarded the full amount.
Groundworks started in Dec ‘09, and the top junior level is almost complete with the toddler area due to be completed in January. The horrendous weather we have had recently hasn’t helped and we have constantly had to review the work and time-schedules we had in place.
Work is progressing on the sensory garden, which is being installed by a local landscaper, with our launch event scheduled for the end of March.
On a personal note, I am proud to have been actively involved in this project. It hasn’t been easy, but each active member of the team has their own individual skills, which have all helped us to achieve our goal.
Julie Nash
P.L.A.Y
The Community Skate Park Project in Taunton, Somerset are getting their plans together after securing a grant of just under £50k from Community Spaces.
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