The ACT Government has announced a range of updates and upgrades to playgrounds and play spaces across Canberra, including a new playground for the Weston Creek suburb of Waramanga.
$1.9 million was allocated by the community-led Play Spaces Forum, as part of the Government’s Better Suburbs Program.
Three new nature play spaces will be built in Eddison Park in Phillip, Glebe Park in the City and a space near the Farrer shops. Twenty-four suburbs across Canberra will receive upgrades to existing parks and playgrounds, while five suburbs will undergo a “whole of suburb review”: Richardson, Waramanga, Torrens, Narrabundah and Higgins.
Minister for City Services Chris Steel said the Play Space Forum wanted to support nature play spaces in growing town centres as a destination for children and families.
“Natural play spaces provide unstructured play experiences that can be creative and imaginative, using primary elements from the landscape, such as logs and rocks, to encourage children to climb, jump, explore and develop their coordination skills,” Minister Steel said.
“These new play areas add to Canberra’s extensive playground network and will enhance children’s physical health wellbeing by providing opportunities for social skills and motor skill development.”
Minister Steel said the Government supported the Play Space Forum’s call for a more strategic approach to playground upgrades in the ACT.
“The suburb play space reviews will be an important opportunity to work closely with established communities, to look at all of the existing play spaces in each suburb and how better quality play spaces can be provided that meet the needs of local children and families,” he said.
“I’m pleased that as part of this work we will also be able to fund the detailed design for a new playground in Waramanga.”
The Play Space Forum was made up of a “cross-section of the Canberra community”, which included parents and carers of children. The Forum reviewed suburb information that included quality and diversity of playgrounds, ages catered for, and whether school playgrounds were open to the public.
For more:
