Following a local council consultation on the management of Brighton and Hove’s parks and green spaces, the Hove Lagoon playground is set to get a facelift this week with seven new playground equipment. These new pieces follow in the wake of other improvement projects the Lagoon playground has seen in the past year, including the new pirate ship installment, the repainting of the wall behind the skate park, and the addition of several new paid amusement pieces such as the multi-platform trampoline.
Over 1800 residents of Brighton and Hove have already voiced their options in the consultation amid the budget cuts that will affect the future maintenance of Brighton and Hove’s some 147 parks, 3,000 allotments, and 50 playgrounds. The council have even put together the following informative video to explain why such open spaces are crucial to our city:
In the video the chair of City in Bloom, Denise Taylor, urges residents to voice their say in how our city moves forward with maintaining these open spaces in the face of budget cuts:
“We should be under no illusion that our open spaces, our playgrounds, our city parks are all under threat. Due to budget restrictions, lack of resources, the council are going to have to be very creative about how they maintain these parks in future.
“We’re talking about our central small parks where you might take a child for a push on a swing, where you might walk a dog, where you might have a quick jog, where you might just sit and be – and read a book. Everything, every single area in the open spaces sector is going to be affected.
“And the council are putting it out there for us to get involved. We must get involved, for the solution, for the way forward. And hopefully they’ll listen to what we have to say. And anybody that’s passionate about their local space must get involved.”