A reminder...

...as to why we are doing this again.

I was just flicking through some old photos and noticed these taken a couple of years ago in Buxton Pavilion Gardens. Kids love roundabouts. I noticed that they were very popular in our questionnaire replies and now I can see why.

At the moment in Bamford play area, there is only the fort which would keep 4 kids of differing ages entertained and interacting with each other and even that needs a fair bit of work doing to it. Hopefully, if we're sucessful, we'll be be able to provide good new stuff for the children so they don't have to be driven here there and everywhere just to have a bit of fun!

(And our roundabout will be able to be used by children in wheelchairs too!)


Fingers crossed.

What's new?

Well, just because it's Christmas, we haven't been slacking! We managed to get our tender brief out to 4 contractors last week and 2 members of the committee met up with the first of them down on the Rec this very morning. We've set out clearly in our brief what we want from the sucessful contractor and expect to meet them all to explain it in more detail as well.

Then, when they have had chance to work up their plans and costings, we've asked for formal quotes to be returned to us by the beginning of February. These will be opened on the same day and we'll select a winner then.

Although price will obviously be a very important aspect of the selection process, we're also going to take into account design and quality. There's no point in going for the cheapest if the equipment is rubbish and the design boring. We don't want to have to do all this again in a hurry!!

Then comes the planning application.....doom doom...... but let's not think about that now!

We hope you all have a very merry Christmas and let's all hope for a happy (and playful) New Year!!

Making progress.

Well, we met up with our Facilitator on Monday afternoon (she's called Janice). It was a freezing cold afternoon but she braved the Rec and had a good poke around the play area (not that there is much to see!). After that we repaired to a warm kitchen for tea, biscuits and strategy.

It appears that, as we are not quite a Project "ready to go", as we need but do not have planning permission, we fall into a different and slightly more advantageous bracket. We are officially, a Development Project! This means that we have up to a year to resolve all the issues and get our Stage 2 Groundwork Uk and National Lottery application in rather than the 6 months we had originally thought.

It also means that there are a few extra funding streams we can tap into to help us get the play area off the ground. For example, we can claim for professional fees and for planning fees. This is a great help and means that we will not have to reduce our wish list for the actual play equipment which is, after all, the main point.

Re timing, we are still committed to getting the application in as quickly as possible but I think we were all a bit daunted by having to:

• Send our a tender brief and select a contractor
• Apply for and obtain planning permission
• Satisfy the requirements regarding title to the play area
• Satisfy the requirements regarding the group's constitution
• Satisfy the requirements regarding evidencing public support etc

All within 6 months. We could have done it but it's nice to know that we have a little wriggle room.

So, having been through our plan and where we are up to with Janice, it was decided that our next step is to focus on refining the Tender Brief and getting it out to our 3 most likely/favoured contractors for competitive quotes. Once this is done we can then concentrate on obtaining planning and the rest of the requirement safe in the knowledge of what our final play area will look like.

We're having another meeting on Monday to finalise this step and then we might take a wee break for Christmas and New Year!