Adventure playgrounds in Brixton and across the borough have been closed by Lambeth council this week after it terminated the contract with the organisation tasked to run them.
Children and their parents were left bitterly disappointed during the summer holidays when they turned up at playgrounds in Max Roach Park and Loughborough Park to find them locked with a sign saying they were “temporarily” closed.
Lambeth council said they terminated the contract with the providers, Lambeth Play Association (LPA), after breaches in the contract. A total of seven adventure playgrounds have been affected.
Councillor Rachel Heywood, cabinet member for children and families, said: “The playgrounds are hugely popular with local parents and children and I am determined we solve this situation as soon as possible. We must have an organisation that is run properly overseeing any of our facilities, particularly ones that involve young people.
“There are other great facilities available including the new children’s playground in Brockwell Park but I will continue to press to get this situation sorted as soon as possible.”
The seven Adventure Playgrounds this affects are Max Roach (Brixton), Loughborough Park (Brixton), Streatham Vale (Streatham), Willington Rd (Clapham North), Kennington, Lollard (north Lambeth) and Tulse Hill.
Have you been hot by the closures? Or are you a member of staff at one of the playgrounds? Have your say by emailing us on newsdesk@brixtonblog.com.
[…] of a loss. ‘Temporarily’ closed in August of last year (for more details check out the Brixton Blog), this is one of four adventure playgrounds still closed in […]
This is ridiculous. However not unexpected as everything thats meant to be for the youths always gets the bad deal. Hope are kids can keep focused and find other positive outlets, adults failing them yet again….
This is the same organisation which has been allowed in recent weeks the bid for the running of several of the One O Clock Clubs. Which begs two questions – why was the council allowing this organisation to bid against in house provision for services when they must already have been aware of problems and what will now happen with the One O Clock Club provision. They surely aren’t going to give this organisation more of our childrens’ services?
the new brockwell park playground is not staffed or supervised. It is ridiculous to suggest it is an alternative for those parents who rely on adventure playgrounds to provide childcare during the school holidays.
Lambeth ran these APGs directly until last september. They were well run, reliable and safe. Lambeth decided to give them to the Lambeth Play Association to run against huge opposition by parents, young people and staff who all warned that it would be a disaster for the service. It was a shambles from the outset – the clubs were delayed re-opening last September because LPA didn’t actually have enough managers to take charge of so many sites.
Personally, I think it was absolutely reckless of the council to hand over the playgrounds to an organisation that was so unprepared to run them and i can only hope that this unplanned termination of their contract is not down to any harm coming to any child on any of the sites. Our children always deserved better treatment than this and Lambeth should apologise to all the staff they chucked out last year and ask them to come back so that the clubs can re-open under COUNCIL control.
Do we need any more proof that putting children’s services down the ‘co-operative council’ road is just about running down our services and letting down our young people?
Its actually disgusting how hush hush this has been kept but a member of the LPA staffing team was arrested as a result of molesting a child its not until he was arrested and the police saw that he worked with children that they then reported it. It has since come out that one or more of the other members of staff on that site was aware of this and as a result LPA has been closed down
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The playground in the estate on Tulse Hill (next to Jubilee School) says it is closed due to “plumbing” problems. It closed last week.