Provost Park in Gargunnok
The Stirlingshire village of Gargunnock has a population of 694. Resources were available as a result of new housing development to improve the existing village play area, which consisted of old and random pieces of equipment round the edges of a football pitch. This site presented a design challenge in that the pitch could not be relocated either to another site or within the site.
The resources available from the housing developer were insufficient, and local residents got together to raise additional funding and to work in partnership with Play Services on design development. These two processes proceeded in conjunction with each other over a two year period, starting in 2004 and involving in some way almost every resident, including all the children and young people in the various surveys, workshops, open meetings and fund raising events that ensued. Two residents (both parents of young children) who'd taken a lead role from the start were members of the project team, attending site meetings throughout the construction period.
A wildlife garden is an integral part of the play space. Before the Easter 2006 holidays, children were involved in tree planting within this area. During the holidays, 30 local children and young people aged 5-14 worked with playworkers, the play space designer and a community artist to design and make a range of features connected to the wildlife garden, and the park as a whole. These included carving a log seat, making bird feeder poles and making interpretative boulders. The latter involved the children identifying and collecting items from the park to reflect the range of wildlife garden habitats. The children worked individually and collectively setting items in resin and preparing designs to be cast in bronze. This work is still in progress, and will be completed by Easter 2007 but further planting on site as a whole will occur in Summer 2007. The main play space features were largely completed in May 2006.
The total cost of the play area was 54k, 30k of which was raised by the community. The designers were Judi Legg, Play Space Designer and Mike Hyatt, Landscape Architect. The contractors were AEL Ltd.
