New Griffeen Valley Park playground set to open after months of construction
By Aura McMenamin
The new Griffeen Valley Park playground could open as early as this Friday after a €250,000 development.
New Mayor Paul Gogarty posted a message from SDCC that confirmed that the Lucan park would open after months of construction.
SDCC said: “Works are now substantially complete on Griffeen Playground. The contractor is completing the final touches, hanging gates etc and we are awaiting delivery of some netting in the next day or two.”
A period of consultation was carried out last year between April 29 and May 13. This included five site visits by council officials and contact with local primary schools and creches. The council also received 160 completed questionnaires and conversation with the playground users.
Based on the feedback, the brief for designers called for an increase in size of the playground, additional equipment, a modern open plan design with more free play and active play areas, natural play areas and additional equipment for children aged 6 to 12.
Creative Play Solutions eventually won the tender to develop the playground.
The council predicted that the park will be open to the public sometime next week, or even as early as Friday.
They said: “The final independent safety inspection is scheduled for Friday 7th and the contractor is very confident of being able to hand over the site to us next week. ( If there are no amendments recommended we may even be able to open on Friday evening).”
Waterstown Park in Palmerstown is due a makeover too – SDCC has committed to a development of the park and said they received an unusually large volume of feedback from the public.
According to the same email from SDCC, they received over 250 returned questionnaires from residents about how they wanted to see park develop.
They said: “This is a particularly high level of engagement compared to most locations. From an initial flick through it seems that many respondents want both a playground and a play trail through the park, which should be easily achieved with the available budget.”
However, they were disappointed with the lack of feedback from prominent groups in the Public Participation Network (PPN) which is led by the Department of Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government.
The deadline for questionnaire submissions was extended to July 10th, with the council adding: “A public meeting will be held in the Autumn where the Council will present the results of the questionnaires and present a number of different design proposals for consideration, at which point a winning design can be chosen.”
