A popular but dated play area within the grounds of one of Bradley Stoke Town Council’s three activity centres is to be refreshed with an exciting range of new equipment after councillors selected a contractor for the £105k project.
The play park at Baileys Court Activity Centre has been in use for over 26 years, but council officers say the equipment has become “tired” and spare parts are becoming harder to source.
Following a formal tendering process which saw nine companies submit bids for the work, the contract for the project has been awarded to Kompan, a multinational supplier of playground equipment with a UK base in Milton Keynes.
Council officers set a design brief that called for the park to accommodate as many children as possible and to consider inclusive and accessible pieces of play equipment, and as a result the agreed proposal caters for up to 95 children with 40 play activities.
A report states: “The design has provided a wide assortment of different play experiences for a wider range of abilities and ages, children have the option of playing alone or with friends on the see-saw and multi play units. Kompan have catered for the needs of children/young people with disabilities plus the inclusion of adults and carers with disabilities.”
It had been hoped that a wheelchair accessible swing or roundabout could be included, but in the end, this was deemed impractical considering the small size of the site. Councillors will instead discuss the future possibility of placing such equipment in the Beacon Play Area at Jubilee Green, where there is more space.
It is planned that the work will be carried out during the school holidays, starting on 23rd July 2021 and completing by 26th August 2021. This is to make sure that the least amount of disruption is caused in the local area, particularly with respect to “traffic, parking and parents dropping off children [at the nearby primary school]”.
External grant funding of £44.2k has been secured for the project (comprising £30k from Enovert Community Trust and £14.2k from Ibstock Enovert Trust), leaving the town council left to cover the remaining £60.5k of the £104.7k total cost.
More information and related links:
- Invitation to tender for play area redevelopment (BSTC)
- Draft minutes of the Annual Full Council meeting on 26th May 2021, at which the decision on the award of contract was reached (item 18.2.2 refers) [MS Word] (BSTC)
- Higher-resolution version of the 3D visualisation of the selected design (Dropbox)
This article originally appeared in the June 2021 issue of the Bradley Stoke Journal magazine (on page 20). The magazine is delivered FREE, nine times a year, to ALL 8,700 homes in Bradley Stoke. Phone 01454 300 400 to enquire about advertising or leaflet insertion.
Start of work delayed
UPDATE added 13th August 2021.
It has come to light that over-optimistic project planning by the town council combined with a failure to recognise that planning permission needs to be obtained from the local planning authority (South Gloucestershire Council) has led to the start of work being delayed. No work now will take place at the site over the school summer holiday. Further details will be published soon in an update article on this website.
More info: Details of planning application submitted on 5th August 2021
Further setback
UPDATE added 5th April 2022.
Bradley Stoke Town Council’s troubled £105,000 project to “refresh” the play area at Baileys Court Activity Centre has suffered another embarrassing setback. The latest delay has been caused by the contractors making a “surveying error”, meaning that some items of new play equipment won’t be able to fit in their approved positions. Read more…
