We reported back in June that the annual inspection of the playground equipment had found that after fifteen years of sustained use, the climbing frame was unsafe. The top timber had finger-sized gaps in them, and the poles into the ground were significantly rotted below the surface. At the time, we fenced it off to prevent use.

​At the same time, we were planning to integrate the standalone tunnel pipe – donated by Forestry England – back into the earth mound, effectively returning it to its original condition before the old tunnel fell apart six years ago.

​Killing two birds with one stone, we have now cut up the climbing frame and reused 26 pieces of the salvaged timber as the end retaining walls for the tunnel, saving around £400 on buying new sleepers.

​As usual in the park, nothing went quite as expected, with part of a buried WWII road needing to be jackhammered to get the vertical timbers in.

​With an additional ten sandbags and four tonnes of topsoil installed above the tunnel, the mound is again a continuous ramp between the swings and the slide. We will be seeding the new soil and hoping that the weather in September/October is good enough for new growth.

​We will be trying to clear the climbing frame bark area in the next two weeks and the council is discussing our options to replace the climbing frame at our September meeting.​​

The new installation is already very popular – we counted seventeen children and two dogs in or on it immediately after we’d finished but before we finally closed the gate!