£1 million Government Grant to Improve Local Children’s Play Facilities

The Government has awarded Hillingdon £1million to improve local play facilities. This grant is aimed at encouraging local children to enjoy playing in our local parks and community areas. The grant will be spent on the basis of what local people, especially local children, say is needed to improve play facilities in the area. I am really pleased that the Government has given us this golden opportunity to improve and create new local play areas.
6 years ago I convened a meeting of all the local organisations in Hillingdon that were interested in children’s play. At that meeting we set up the Hillingdon Play Network and a few years later we became Hillingdon Play Association and gained a lottery grant of £500,000 to encourage improvements in play in Hillingdon. We have developed a play strategy and have a team of playworkers based at Barra Hall. Thanks to the lobbying of the government by play associations like ours we now have a national programme for investment in play and Hillingdon has gained this new £1 million opportunity to build and enhance new and existing play areas.

We now need local people’s ideas on how this new grant can be spent on creating new and improving existing play facilities in our community. Let me know your ideas and I will feed them into the Play Assoiciation and the local council who will be managing this programme. If you are interested in learning more about the Hillingdon Play Association contact me and I will provide you with details of what we do and how you can participate in our work in promoting local play.

submitted by John on 06 Mar 2009 at 14:42