Pupils perform opening ceremony for new £60,000 East Woodhay playground

WOOLTON Hill school pupils opened a new £60,000 playground in the village last Thursday following months of work by parish councillors overseeing the project.
Woolton Hill junior school pupils, Bella Cooke, aged eight and Ben Waite, aged ten, alongside seven-year-old St Thomas’ Infant school pupils, Ruby Butler and Lucy Nicoll, helped to cut the ribbon and officially open the playground, situated on the recreation ground, next to next to St Thomas’ infant school.
Parish councillor, Rebecca Dennis, who has overseen the project, said it was great to finally see local children enjoying the facilities, resulting from everyone’s hard work on the project and continued:
“We’ve designed a park which will appeal to all age ranges and abilities and the climbing frame has been specifically designed for us to incorporate interactive play.”
Equipment includes old favourites, such as a roundabout, alongside new equipment including a large climbing frame, ncorporating a slide, fireman’s pole, rope walks and small climbing frame with slide.
A wooden train and tunnel, nest swing, adventure trail including cargo net, roll-over bars, monkey bars and a log walk roundabout are also included, replacing old equipment which became too expensive to maintain, alongside refurbished picnic tables.
Parish Council chairman James Mitchell said: "It is wonderful to see the East Woodhay community working hand in hand with the parish council on the program to improve local facilities and to add this superb new facility to other recently renewed facilities in the parish - Heath End Tennis Court and the Heath End playground.”
Funding for the project included developer’s contributions - £8,187 (Redwoods) and £23,636 (Wheelwrights), with the balance to be provided by the parish council and further developer’s contributions of £23,053 pending/ imminent from Linden Homes.
Children at the opening received goodie bags provided by Wicksteed, who supplied the equipment and sweets from the parish council.