The Friends of Jubilee Green group have announced that Bradley Stoke’s new adventure play park at Savages Wood Road is now fully open.
The park had been temporarily closed for a few days after the official opening on Friday 24th July “to allow completion of the site”.
Information on the Friends website says:
“Following the incredibly popular opening of the park we are sure many people were disappointed when the park had to be temporarily closed to allow the safe installation of the last few pieces of equipment. The opening on the 24th July went ahead as it would have been an impossible task to publicise a last minute postponement of the opening and move the companies and groups that had generously provided their time, crafts and refreshments for free.”
Spokesperson Michelle Dent has now told The Journal:
“The contractors have now installed the nest swing and climbing frame. They’ve cleared the site of all their equipment and sewn grass seed on the bare mud on Jubilee Green.”
Michelle adds that the Friends will be holding ‘Fun in the sun’ play sessions in Jubilee Green Park on Saturday 15th August and Sunday 23rd August (12-2pm):
We will be bringing all the toys kindly donated by Tesco Express Winterbourne including: buckets, spades, footballs, skipping ropes, cricket and badminton sets as well as a play parachute donated by Bradley Stoke Matters. All we need is the sun! Naturally if it is raining we will not be running the sessions. Keep an eye on our website for cancellation notices and future dates. There will be no toilet or refreshments available so bring a picnic.
I am sure everyone will agree that the new park is great and well overdue in our area. We could do with more of them to be honest.
I feel it needs to be brought to your attention though, that the bin for disposal of dog mess is right next to a rubbish bin and within the park boundary? This could be a problem with younger children especially and I think it should actually be outside the park area in case of spillages, as can happen from time to time. I assume dogs should not be in the area anyway.
Also I hope the area does not become too water logged as it appears to be build directly on top of alot of clay and children can actually dig deep enough in the sand to find dirty water.
Having said all this I think children generally enjoy themselves getting mucky!
The Friends of Jubilee Green (FOJG) agree with your observations about the dog bin and share your concerns about dogs being allowed into the park area. The bin was installed in the park just as the designer was going on holiday so we have been unable to look into getting it moved, especially when you consider the wooden sleeper wall that the bin is attached to was designed for children to walk on.
When the friends group formed several of the members raised two immediate issues one was provision of toilets the other was allowing dogs into the park. We have an Idea that has verbal support of Bradley Stoke Council to fund raise for a ‘fence’ that will be a tunnel for the children to run through, made out of willow that will run around the park boundary, with gates at the path entrances. We would then be looking to re-locate the dog bins outside of the park and exclude dogs. Unfortunately we can’t do much to discourage the cats from using the sand pit as a litter tray.
We don’t have anything in a plan form as yet as we only discussed this idea with the councilors at the opening ceremony. We have been busy with lengthy task of formalizing our group so that we operate in a way that has the communities best interests at heart. Our first project is the provision of a structure for the youth of Bradley Stoke and we are awaiting further information at the moment so that we can establish how much fund raising we need to do, once this is complete we will then move on to other projects. Unfortunately, at the moment we just do not have enough active volunteers to tackle all the exciting development opportunities for this excellent community space.
With regards to the children digging, most of Bradley Stoke is built on clay so there is not much that can be done about the water, however the park has several channels running through it, they run under the small bridges inside and outside of the park. These are designed to capture the water and for it to run into the pond at the back of the park, the channels inside the park are designed so that children wearing wellies can explore the water.
If you have any more observations or recommendations we would love to hear them. Please visit our website http://www.friendsofjubileegreen.org.uk to get in touch with us.
we went to the jubilee green park on tues morning, and although what has been built is nice, we were disgusted with the fact that the bin was over flowing and there was rubbish around the park, and to make it even worse there was dog mess on the paths inside the park. Obviously dogs are allowed off their leads and unresponsible owners have let their dogs mess in the park and have not picked it up. This is a childrens playpark, they shouldn’t have to be looking where they are walking, incase they step in it, they should be having fun. May i suggest a fence goes up as soon as possible so that dogs are not allowed into the park. Also it would be nice if the bins did get emptied and rubbish picked up especially with all the wasps around at the mo. As for the point made by fojg about not being able to stop cats using the sandpit as a litter tray…how come redland green park has had a play area in a sand pit for years and there is never any cat litter in the sand pit, so there is obviously a way to stop the cats. Come on fojg would you like your children to be playing in dog/cat mess?
Mrs Brand you seem a very passionate person about the park and we are desperate for active, passionate people to join our group of volunteers, have you considered joing us? There are only 12 of us and we all have families and jobs so our progress appears slow as we are all sparing as much time as possible to the community.
The rubbish situation was bought to my attention on Monday evening by a resident contacting us direct through our website http://www.friendsofjubileegreen.org.uk. I got onto it first thing Tuesday morning and discovered South Glos Council have not emptied the bins, this was also noticeable as the bin on Savages Wood road by the roundabout was also full. Kindly, the staff at the Jubilee Centre are looking after the bins in the interim and are emptying them. The bins were empty when I visited the park with my young family on Wednesday and when we ran our ‘fun in the sun’ play session on Sunday lunchtime.
One of our forthcoming projects is to fund-raise for a fence, move the dog poo bins and ban dogs from the park. But we need volunteers to help us as we have a list of projects to do and not enough people to work through them, so it will take us some time.
If you have any direct ideas on how to stop the cats using the sand pit as a cat litter tray I would love to hear them as it has stumped me. It would be an ideal project for you to lead as a member of the friend group.
I have visited this new play area for the first time this week and am very diappointed. I have a 10 year old and 3 year old son and this park does not at all cater for my younger son. Play areas are used mainly by younger children, you have no appropriate climbing equipement, slides or swings for the preschool age group. We live close to baileys court and the small park there is far better equiped. The kind of equipment that has been placed in the new area with the seating will only encourage groups of older children and i notice grafitti has already appeared. During the holdidays a number of my friends decided not to use this new area due to the lack of facilities for younger children.
Thank you for your comments Sally. I am the Chair of the Friends of Jubilee Green and a mum to a 3 year old boy and a 11 week old girl and my son and his friends find lots of things to do in the park. My 3 year old son is in the picture at the top of this article climbing the rope, he manages to get up to the third foot point before he looses his confidence. My son and his friends love sitting in the nest swing together, building sandcastles, walking on the timber walls and racing each other down the slides, myself and the other mums also have fun joining in these slide races on the larger slide.
There are areas of the park that my son is too small for, for example the rodeo board and the adult exercise equipment but this is a park for the whole community and was built to have elements for everyone and not a park that is specifically for toddlers and pre-school children. There is a need in Bradley Stoke to provide equipment and space for older children and this park is aiming to fill this void and bring the community together.
Bradley Stoke has several parks that are for pre-school children and you are right that Baileys Court is an excellent park and I take my son there when we want to use traditional play equipment, and this is my advice to people I speak to, for imaginative play use the Jubilee Green Park and for traditional play visit the other parks like Baileys Court. We are lucky in Bradley Stoke to have so many play areas.
As I have mentioned in my previous comments on this website we are looking for passionate people to join our group and you can contact us directly through our website: http://www.friendsofjubileegreen.org.uk. The website also has details of the other projects we are working on for the green area.