Hopes fade for park’s revamp

Hopes have been dashed of money being given to revamp a well-used play area in Southwell.

Southwell Town Council applied to Newark and Sherwood District Council for a grant to improve Norwood Gardens play area.

But the application was rejected because it failed to meet specific criteria for the scheme.

The chairman of the town council’s finance and policy committee, Mr Peter Harris, said he was disappointed at the decision.

He thought Southwell had missed out because in the past the town council had made its own investment in play equipment so the town seemed to be in less need of money than others.

Mr Harris said: “Other parishes that did not invest their own money in improving play spaces for children have, it seems, been given a priority.

“Revamping the Norwell Gardens play area will now take a lot longer than we were hoping it would.

“We will be making our own contributions to try and improve the play area but I do not know how quickly we can now progress with it.”

At present, Norwood Gardens has a small roundabout, swings, a slide, two goal posts and a climbing frame.

Mr Brendan Haigh, a town and district councillor, said most of the equipment was in need of repair and in the past some of it had been badly vandalised.

He said: “The play area at the moment is very enclosed and so lends itself to vandalism.”

Mr Haigh said the town council would continue to make plans to improve the area but he did not know when it would be completed.

Last year the district council was given £246,301 from the lottery’s Children’s Play Programme to improve play areas.

It will also receive £162,545 over three years through Nottinghamshire County Council’s Playbuilder grant.

The district council has allocated £43,345 towards creating a new play area for Rolleston.

The district council’s parks and amenities manager, Mr Phil Beard, said Norwood Gardens was assessed against specific criteria for the Playbuilder scheme, along with several other sites in the district.

Mr Beard said: “Although it scored reasonably well, it scored lower than others for several reasons.

“For instance, an area which does not have any play equipment at all, but where a need has been identified, would be seen as a priority over one that has some equipment in need of improvement.

“This is an unfortunate consequence of different schemes competing for limited funds, but there may be other opportunities to access funding to improve this play area in the future.”