£1m grant makes fun a top priority

MORE than £1 million is to be spent building and upgrading 22 play areas for children.

Stoke-on-Trent City Council has secured funding totalling £1,132,000 from the Department for Children, Schools and Families as part of a national scheme to enhance play space for eight to 13-year-olds.

Work will take place over two years with the first batch of 11 sites due to be completed by March 31 next year.

Each of those sites has been awarded £48,418 and the council has said other money may become available through ward budgets or funding from developers.

Parents, children and members of the communities will be involved in the design process.

The first places in the city to benefit will be Great Chell, Mount Pleasant, Norton, Etruria, Longton, Boothen, Trent Vale and Meir.

Penkhull will get two play areas, one in Richmond Street Park, the other in Lodge Road.

Hanford's play area will also incorporate a sensory garden.

Liz Perry, secretary of Stoke West and Oakhill Community Association, believes play areas are vital in local communities.

The 33-year-old, of Chamberlain Avenue, Stoke, has welcomed plans for a play area in Boothen, because she has to take her two children five-year-old James and two-year-old Charlotte, to the park by car.

She said: "A lot of houses in the area just have back yards and there isn't really any green space with equipment to play.

"I normally go to Longton Park, but you don't always want to have to get in the car. It is great we are going to get something locally."

Planning applications have already been submitted for the 11 play areas in the first year of the scheme.

The first, seeking permission for play equipment at Richmond Street Park, was approved by councillors earlier this week.

A petition circulated around Penkhull had gathered 830 signatures from people who wanted improvements made to the park.

A further 11 places in the city are expected to benefit from new play areas when the scheme reaches its second phase.

They will be in the wards Stoke and Trent Vale, Longton North, Meir Park and Sandon, Weston and Meir North, Abbey Green, Berryhill and Hanley East, Chell and Packmoor, Norton and Bradeley, Bentilee and Townsend and two in Trentham and Hanford.

Their exact locations will not be decided until January.

In a separate lot of funding Norton will also get a toddler play area.

This project has secured £30,000 for equipment, including swings, a roundabout, slide and seesaw on Norton Recreation Ground.