West Grey is buying a new playground structure for the Durham Town Hall Park as part of the new splash pad project.
Council approved spending $50,000 from reserves to purchase a playground structure during a meeting on May 8, after it was found the current one was showing its age.
This comes as the 2022 Durham Homecoming Committee partnered with the municipality for the installation of a splash pad and pavilion at the Durham Town Hall Park.
As part of the project, the current playground structure needed to be moved to another location at the park to make room for the new splash pad.
Corporate and Community Initiatives Officer Kodey Hewlett says, “at the time, we were aware of the age of the structure but were hopeful that the condition was better than it is. We have completed our annual inspections of the playground and up to date they have been passing inspection with flying colours and fine, however, when the park was dismantled, we became aware of the condition of the playground that was not so positive.”
Other playground accessories were deemed fine and will be reinstalled at the new location.
The new structure will have various climbing areas, a slide and play panels and is expected to be installed for the tentative July 1 park re-opening date.
The project also resulted in the loss of some trees, but Hewlett says there are plans to plant the same number of trees being removed.
“While we were hopeful some of the trees were going to be able to remain in the park, when we had tree condition assessments done, the condition of the trees was much worse than originally anticipated. If they were not removed with this current construction, they would have been removed very soon after. The majority of the trees only had one to two years left in their lifetime,” says Hewlett.
This is the latest to the splash pad project after council determined how it will provide water to the new facility in February.
The homecoming committee first approached council in March, 2023 requesting backing for the project and in December, council committed $100,000 for the project.