Published on Thursday 02 July 2020
Following the news that outdoor play areas can reopen, we are working to ensure our facilities are prepared and ready to open safely.
Some parks will open from Saturday with plans to have the remaining parks open on Monday. Before opening, each site will be inspected for safety, cleaned and where necessary grass will be cut.
The playgrounds should all pose a low risk of infection when reopened as they have been closed for over three months. If guidance is followed the main risks would be via person to person contact and touchpoints from the playpark being in use. The key message is for parents to take hand sanitiser and encourage children to use it regularly and to wash their hands before coming and upon returning home.
New signage will be placed on each gate or entrance encouraging users to use the park responsibly. Visitors should be maintaining social distancing and we suggest visitors ‘Think Twice’ - if the park is busy, come back later. Limiting the length of time of your park visits initially would also help so that more children are able to use the facilities.
Cllr Felicity Rice, Portfolio Holder for Environment said:
"We are sure that parents will be delighted to find parks are reopening and children can get active and burn off excess energy! Our teams are working hard to make sure parks open safely and I’d like to thank them for acting so quickly. However, we have over a hundred playparks and it simply is not possible to open them all overnight, but we are opening them as quickly as we can. We also ask everyone to please be responsible for your own children’s safety, please read the guidance and we look forward to families enjoying our playparks again.''
We will continue to monitor the situation across our area with Public Health. If we become concerned about risks within public playgrounds we will consider the option of closures.