New swing brings a lot of laughs
The kids swinging madly on their new giant swing are yawning because they stayed up late playing spotlight.
Manchester St, Pa¯tea, has a close knit community where the children can play outside, watched by their families from the houses around a little park.
A giant swing installed recently has made the park, just bare grass for three years, a magnet for kids even when the sun goes down.
‘‘I’ve heard them in the evening, from my house I can hear the laughter,’’ said Mareta MarstersGrubner, who lives a few houses away from the playground.
She’s led a group of residents, with support from Pa¯tea Community Board members, who secured funding to install the new swing to replace a playground removed in 2015.
A mosaic hopscotch will soon be installed and the group hopes further equipment can be added later.
In 2015, the South Taranaki District Council decided the old playground equipment was past its minimum condition rating for safety. Having just installed a new $100,000 playground at the Pa¯ tea Domain, it was decided that the Manchester St equipment should be removed.
But Manchester St is at the north end of Patea, 1.7 kilometres from the new playground, and the little playground was well used by the children in the area, grandmother Tina Fisher said.
She said there were about 20 children living in the area and others who visited often.
The families were shocked to find council staff removing the equipment one day.
The group hopes further equipment can be added later.
‘‘I was quite gutted. The kids said: ‘Nana, the man is taking away the park’. Their faces dropped when they saw it gone.’’
She and a neighbour got a petition together, but this was declined, so they enlisted Marsters-Grubner’s help.
The new equipment was funded with a $10,000 grant from the McBroom Estate.
To help cut costs, residents were on site when it was being installed and spread the bark under the new swing.
‘‘Even the kids were there with their rakes,’’ Fisher said.