NEW EASTWOOD FARM PLAYPARK TO GO AHEAD
NEW EASTWOOD FARM PLAYPARK TO GO AHEAD
Tim Rippington is the Labour Councillor for Brislington West ward
In the midst of so much doom and gloom it’s great to have a bit of good news, and that’s what we got this week when the Area 5 Committee of the Council voted unanimously to allocate another £10K to the Eastwood Farm play park project. This sum means that the Council can now go out to tender for all the play equipment specified in the Friends of Eastwood Farm’s original plan for the park.
This project actually started more than five years ago, with the Friends Group consulting with the local community about the park and then employing a local architect to draw up professional plans. Since then, the battle to raise enough funds has been ongoing. I was first introduced to the project when I was Chair of the Brislington Labour Party and attended a meeting of Greater Brislington Together. This community organisation is tasked with determining which local projects receive funds via the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL). On this occasion Derek Browne was there to make his pitch and impressed me with his total enthusiasm for the park and how it would benefit the area. After that meeting I asked Derek to speak to the local party and this helped persuade them to back the project, and in turn to mandate our two local councillors at the time, Mike Langley and Harriet Bradley, to support it. This was not difficult, as Mike in particular had been a long-time supporter and had done a lot of work himself trying to obtain funds, but without success. (Sadly, Mike died last year and so will never see the new park, but one of his last acts as a councillor was to vote in favour of the initial CIL bid at committee.)
Once the initial amount of £65K was allocated by Bristol City Council, the Friends group then had to set about obtaining match funding. This was no mean feat given the dwindling number of funders and also the Covid-19 crisis striking in March 2020, just when they were due to approach some funding organisations. The Friends group did a brilliant job of raising another £65K (special mentions here for Ralph Openshaw and the Chair Jo Moore), but because other funding streams had dried up this led to a shortfall of around 10K (or a fifth of the cost of the play equipment). I therefore approached the BCC committee in charge of CIL again to ask if another 10K could be allocated to the project, and it was at the recent meeting called to discuss this proposal that the funds were voted for to enable the project to go forward.
The Parks department will be going out to tender very soon, although they have warned that some providers of play equipment are simply not active at the moment due to coronavirus – however, they are hopeful that the work on the new playground could begin in October this year, and completed early in 2021.
It’s hoped that a piece of play equipment can be dedicated to Mike Langley when the park is completed, and we’ve discussed this at the Friends group meetings.
YOUTH ACTIVITIES FOR BRISLINGTON
Another good piece of news for Briz this week is brought to you courtesy of my Labour colleague Carolyn Magson, who is running for the Council in 2021 in the West ward. Carolyn has been the Labour candidate since June 2019, but has been hard at work in the community for a lot longer than that. Last year Carolyn successfully bid for funds to bring the award winning organisation Empire Fighting Chance to Brislington, to provide fitness and agility training in the form of non-contact boxing to young people in the area. Shortly after my election in January I met with Carolyn and EFC to discuss where in Brislington East we could also run sessions, as the funding covers both wards. Of course Covid-19 has interfered here too, but last Monday and Thursday saw the first sessions take place outdoors in Arnos Vale Park and St Anne’s Park. These sessions will run every Monday and Thursday through the summer and are free to attend, so please spread the word!
