Honiton play areas ready for action

Work has finished on £46,850 of eagerly awaited improvements to East Devon District Council’s Bowling Green/Millers Way and Langford Avenue play areas in Honiton and the two play areas are now open and ready for action.

Earlier this year local children at Honiton Primary School and Honiton Littletown Primary School chose the designs for the improvements to the council’s play areas in Honiton, which have now been implemented to a high standard.

East Devon District Council and Honiton Town Council have been working closely together to spend a total of £46,850 on improvements to the play areas. This has been split between the playing fields with  £28,350 allocated to Bowling Green/Millers Way and £18,500 spent on Langford Avenue.

The money has been contributed by developers through Section 106 funding for play, which is given by developers for every new home created in Honiton. Because East Devon chooses to involve its local communities in how it spends this money, Honiton Town Council were invited to visit all the Honiton play areas where this money could be spent. They subsequently decided that these two play areas were most in need of the funding. 

The children had a choice of three designs for each play area and voted for their favourites. The designs which children chose from were provided by companies who most closely fulfilled the children’s design brief for the town. The design brief was created when East Devon and Honiton Town Council visited Honiton Littletown Primary School and Honiton Primary School to talk to their School Councils to find out what type of activities in the play areas they wanted to be able to participate in.

The children voted for their favourite designs as follows:

• 374 children at Honiton Littletown Primary voted on their favourite design for the Bowling Green/Millers Way play area - 64% chose the winning design by HAGS SMP.
• 312 children at Honiton Primary School voted on their favourite design for Langford Avenue -  71% chose the winning design by Wicksteed.

Councillor Iain Chubb, East Devon District Council’s Portfolio holder for the Environment said: “I know our StreetScene team has worked extremely closely with the town council to ensure that these designs were installed in time for the summer holidays. The fact that they are ready for play is testimony to the hard work of our StreetScene staff. I am also delighted at the imaginative and creative thought that the schoolchildren have put into choosing such a varied selection of equipment. These improvements will reap huge benefits for the community by encouraging more children to keep fit and be active.”

Councillor Stuart Hughes, Chairman of East Devon District Council said: "I wish I was a youngster again! The equipment in these play areas is fantastic - far better than the old iron rocking horse that I can remember playing on. Anything that encourages youngsters to enjoy fresh air and exercise has to be welcomed and will stand them in good stead later in life."