A group of parents who decided to fund-raise for a new village playground, have celebrated its opening three months ahead of schedule.
In May 2013 a group of parents in Barrow, started working towards raising the £50,000 for the new playground behind the village hall.
The old play area built 12 years earlier was no longer suitable for the growing number of children living in the expanding village.
Now, thanks in part to a locality budget grant of £1,500 from St Edmundsbury Borough Cllr Ian Houlder, and £10,000 from the borough council’s Rural Initiative Grant Scheme, the new play area has opened three months ahead of schedule.
Lisa Gleave, chairperson of the Barrow Community Play Project, a subcommittee of the Barrow Village Hall Management Committee, led the project.
She said: “It has been open for a month and the feedback we are getting from parents and the children themselves is amazing. It is very rewarding to see the play area so busy even at this time of the year. The local community has considered for some time that the existing play equipment required updating and no longer served its purpose. Action Play & Leisure in Norfolk designed and installed the play area and they have created a wonderful community space for us. We are very grateful to all our funders. We would also like to thank Barrow cum Denham Parish Council and the Village Hall Management Committee for their support throughout this project”.
Cllr Houlder, who represents the Barrow ward on the borough council said:
“The playground is already proving very popular. The group of parents have steered this project from the outset and in just over 18 months they have secured the funds and had the new play area built. It is very impressive. I am delighted that as local ward councillor I was able to contribute towards this through my local grant. This pot of money was set up to help families and communities to help themselves, as they have done here in Barrow”.
Other financial contributors include: Barrow cum Denham Parish Council; Havebury Housing Partnership; Asda Foundation; The Suffolk Foundation; The Suffolk Empowering Communities Fund (SCC) Suffolk County Councillor Terry Clements and The Ganzoni Charitable Trust.
Mortimer & Gausden Estate Agents donated £100 for every property they sold in Barrow during 2014, while Glasswells, Waitrose Community Matters, F A Valiant & Sons and Extensia Properties Ltd also made contributions towards the project.
