The newly-refurbished West Ham Park playground is opening in the coming days – with luck for children to enjoy during the school holidays.
The playground is having its first major redesign since 1986. Park users will have been watching the new playground take shape over the last few months. After a few inevitable glitches progress has been good.
The original plan had a Phase 2, to extend the playground and create a ‘quiet play’ area as well as refurbish the toilets and provide a catering outlet, but the City of London, which owns and manages the Park, decided not to make the additional investment and were unable to obtain grant funds. The Friends of West Ham Park hope this phase will be taken forward in the near future.
Alongside a completely new water feature, the star of the show is the Explorer ship. Modelled on the kind of ships sailing the seas in the time of Dr Fothergill the former Park owner and creator of the park’s ornamental gardens. On this ship children can play with imagination and fantasy while they explore and climb.
The Friends of the Park decided to create an interpretation panel which tells Dr Fothergill’s story for the children’s area and install it near to the Explorer ship. This may counteract the tendency for the ship to be dubbed ‘the Pirate ship’!
The story is told with younger children in mind, but links with the ‘Kew Gardens of the East ‘exhibition in the flower gardens. This story is also told with the support of a professional illustrator of Children’s books. His illustrations are lively and expressive and full of detail.
Since January local children have desperately missed their playground and it can’t reopen too soon.
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