Exmouth’s Redgates play area has been given a new lease of life following £100,000 worth of improvements and children from the town are loving it!

East Devon District Councillors today (16 January 2020) celebrated the opening of the newly refurbished Redgates play area in Exmouth, which has been given a new lease of life following £100,000 worth of improvements.

East Devon District Council has funded the new equipment from its capital budget to replace the old play equipment which had been there for more than 30 years.

Marpool Primary School and the Get Up and Go session for toddlers at LED Leisure in Exmouth have been working closely with East Devon District Council to create a design that would meet the needs of all the children using the site. The youngsters were asked what they wanted included in the design and then several play suppliers tendered a design predominantly based on the children’s requests.

The most popular activities requested by the children were for a ground level trampoline, swings, a slide, climbing and a roundabout. They also asked for a pirates and castles theme. These requirements were sent to a number of play equipment suppliers, who competed to provide the best designs across three sites. A good selection of great quality designs were received and, after mainly seeing which designs best provided what the children and young people wanted, Kompan UK Ltd were appointed to manufacture and construct the new play areas. They have included everything that was requested from the children and the castle and pirate theme makes it unique across the District.

Cllr Stuart Hughes, Chairman of East Devon District Council, who declared the play area officially open, said:

"It's really great to be here today to officially open this exciting play area at Redgates in Exmouth. A lot of hard work has gone into this project, the young children from the local school and youth associations have been involved in choosing the equipment - far better than when I was a youngster when you got what you were given, but they've got what they wanted and it's going to be a great asset and a lot of youngsters are going to enjoy using this facility, so long may it continue."

Cllr Geoff Jung, East Devon’s portfolio holder for the environment, said:

“This large play area was looking very old and parts of it were becoming unsafe, which is why we allocated £100,000 to renewing it. It’s great that it’s now being well used. Thanks to all the local children and young people who took part in the consultation. This process is essential in helping us ensure we provide what the children want. Some of the children now playing on the equipment can say that they helped design the play areas they’re having fun on.”