Wagga votes for new playgrounds

Published: 18 Sep 2020 11:07am

The local community has voted for their favourite new playground designs for Henwood Park on Lake Albert Road and Kimberley Drive Park in Tatton, with option 2 for both parks the winning design.

Council was overwhelmed by the community response with 457 votes received – 232 votes in total for Henwood Park and 225 for Kimberley Drive Park.

Works and Playground Officer John Conlan said it was fantastic to see the community get involved.

“I want to thank everyone who voted,” Mr Conlan said.

“We put the playground selections up for the community to decide because we didn’t want to be guessing which designs people wanted – and thankfully we have two clear favourites.”

Mr Conlan said he had received lots of positive feedback along with suggestions of additional items that could be incorporated into the playgrounds.

“I wanted to let people know that we’ve taken those suggestions on board – unfortunately many of them are well outside our available budget,” Mr Conlan said.

“For example, if we included a toilet block, powered barbeque area, fence and shade sails in addition to the playground equipment, we’d be looking at a cost of $160K per local park rather than $40K.

“We have some great destination parks that have those facilities at various locations throughout the city, such as the Botanic Gardens, Wagga Beach and Lake Albert.”

Council is planning to have both new playgrounds installed prior to Christmas.