TONGARIRO PLAYGROUND UPGRADE ABOUT TO GET UNDERWAY

IT'S A BIG thumbs up for the Tongariro South Playground upgrade from local primary school students.

The upgrade begins this week and was launched with a blessing conducted by Reverend Peace and attended by deputy mayor Christine Rankin, councillors and council staff, representatives of the project’s designers, contractors, and supporters, as well as students from Taupō Primary.

The project was made possible through a private/public funding partnership between council and the 100% Great Lake Charitable Trust, Contact Energy, and Towncentre Taupō. It was originally scheduled for completion in 2020 but was postponed due to COVID-19 restrictions.

Project sponsor Dylan Tahau said it was exciting to finally have the upgrade getting underway.

“We got some great responses from our community survey last year about what people wanted to see in the playground,” Mr Tahau said, “and we’ve incorporated as much of that as possible into our final design.”

“We wanted to create a playground that was unique to Taupō and that told our story of the mountains, so we worked with Bespoke Landscape Architects and Tuwharetoa artist Kingi Pitiroi to develop the overall concept and design of the playground. Bespoke brought a wealth of experience in playground design and Kingi Pitiroi provided the local flavour through his design work.

“We also wanted to create a playground that was accessible to all our community and that could be enjoyed by a wide range of ages and abilities and that allowed for more inclusive play between parents and children. Overall, we think the community will be very happy with the result and we can’t wait to get our tamariki – our expert playground testers – back here in October when it is finished, to put it through its paces.”

Work on the upgrade is scheduled to begin on June 18 and will be completed by end of October; the playground will be closed while the work is carried out, with play spaces available at the Community Park Playground on Horomatangi Street and the Laughton Street Playground.