Swings trump the stumps at ‘natural’ playground

CHARLOTTE TOWN• It’s back to swings and slides for a playground that drew scores of complaints from parents and residents for a natural redesign that included tree stumps.

Mitchell Tweel, a Charlottetown city councillor and head of the parks and recreation committee, said he got an earful about the Connaught Square playground in one of the city’s four heritage squares.

“A lot of the residents were caught totally off guard,” he said Wednesday.

“I was emailed. I was stopped on the street. People phoned me. I had individual meetings with residents in the immediate area.”

The playground was revamped last year for about $ 40,000. The intention of new climbing and spinning structures was to encourage imagination, Tweel said.

But residents wer e shocked when the overhaul didn’t add to the traditional play structures already there. Instead, those were removed and replaced with more natural climbing options, such as balance beams and, of course, the tree stumps.

“We heard safety and security concerns, maybe a child falling off one,” Tweel said. Ultimately, the message was clear. “Make no mistake about it, we’re bringing back the contemporary, traditional playground equipment.”

Some locals said the new design was better for sitting than playing.

The city plans to install new slides, swings and a play structure this year, but is still working out whether the tree stumps will stay, Tweel said. A request for proposals to buy the new equipment says, “To date, the square has some low-profile imaginative play components recently installed.”

Anthony Toderian of CSA Group, which drafts voluntary safety guidelines for projects across Canada, said there’s no way to design a playground that’s 100- percent safe.

“It’s really a team effort on all parties to make sure that everyone is playing safe and that these structures are designed in such a way as to help protect children, but they also need to be stimulating and encouraging to help foster growth.”

Tweel said the lesson is to better share conceptual designs with the public. “They like their playground structures, and you know what? You can’t replace that.”