Chapelfield Play Area Cowie
In 2000, a local child drowned in a farmers pond at Chapelfield, Cowie. This tragic event prompted local residents to form the Cowie Play Areas Group to campaign and raise funds for a local play area.
A suitable site was identified - an area which had been the site of an ancient stone age settlement, and was therefore unsuitable for housing development. While it was an eminently suitable site in that local children already played there, it was also contentious in that it was adjacent to the pond in which the child had drowned. It took some time to work through painful feelings and issues about the drowning and also to achieve design solutions that took regard of these particular local safety issues, without compromising children's need to experience challenge and risk, and to have a degree of privacy and independence.
This meant that though discussion about the play area began in 2000, the play area was not completed until October 2005, and was officially opened in August 2006. There were some teething problems of misuse of the are in the evenings by teenagers. These were dealt with constructively and firmly by the local community, and the play area has developed over the last nine months into a space that's well used and well loved by the whole Cowie community.
The Cowie Play Areas Group worked closely with Play Services in developing plans for the site. Local children paid a visit to the Aberdeenshire prehistory park, Archaeolink and many of the ideas they got from this visit have been built into the design of the park, which includes shelters, cooking and seating areas and a raised beach, as well as mounds, tunnels, slides, a climbing wall and swings.
Children from the two local primary schools were involved in much of the tree planting on the site. They were supported by staff from the local environmental education organisation, Forth Environment Link, by the Play Services Playgrounds Team, and by Landcare Solutions (the contractors). As well as the actual tree planting, these sessions included environmental games, explanations and discussions about the value of trees to wildlife and to people, the reasons for choosing native species, and how they could best help to look after the trees and ensure their survival.
The cost of the play area was approximately £110,000.00. The Cowie Play Parks Group were very successful in raising funding from BBC Children in Need and Stirling Landfill Tax Trust as well as from numerous local fundraising events, and these funds were added to the contribution from Ogilvie Homes.
Local residents continue to play an important part in looking after the play area, keeping a close eye on it and taking on responsibility for locking it at night and opening it in the morning.
Judi Legg, Play Space Designer, and Mike Hyatt, Landscape Architect were responsible for the design of the play area, and construction company Landcare Solutions built it.
