Families protest about chained up playground
FAMILIES gathered in a Southside park on Saturday to protest against the closure of a beloved local playground. We previously reported furious parents planned to take action to demand answers from Glasgow City Council on the condition of the Queen’s Park Playground North.
Parents say the play area is a vital facility for local kids but it has been closed since last month due to “health and safety reasons”, with no advice on when it would reopen. Dad-of-two Sean Kerwin told the Glasgow Times: “It was great to see so many parents and kids come out despite the wind and rain to make their voices heard.
“It’s unacceptable to close such a well-used play area with no timeframe for reopening.
“We hope Glasgow City Council will take notice and get a serious plan in place for reopening and redevelopment.”
Kids and parents made their voices heard with some creative placards reading “down with this sort of swing” and “you’ve turned the weans against yous”.
Mr Kerwin had started a petition to get dangerous equipment fixed, which garnered more than 1100 signatures.
He previously said: “Since I started the petition, the playpark has been chained up.
“I found out through the community council that there is no time scale to reopen it.
“We want our playpark back open and fixed.
“They won’t talk to us, I’ve asked them what’s going on for some clarification and they’ve not responded.
“We need to make sure we’re being heard so we organised with other parents to hold a wee protest.”
Mr Kerwin said previous statements from the council reassured parents that it makes “regular safety inspections of our play areas”.
However, the equipment was left in a state of disrepair, with damaged platforms, broken-through trampolines, chained swings, missing boulders, and uneven playground mats.
Ahead of the protest, a statement from Glasgow City Council read: “We are very sorry that the play area by Balvicar Street is currently closed off.
“Safety issues with the equipment were identified during a recent, routine inspection and clearly we take public safety extremely seriously.
“Our parks team is working to repair the equipment wherever possible and we are hopeful equipment will be back in use in the coming weeks.”