Leven Park play area finally opens

After literally years of waiting, the new play area at Leven Park was formally opened for public use this morning.


The first children enjoying the new play area

The play area was subject to a thorough inspection by ROSPA over a couple of hours yesterday afternoon. As well as receiving a clean bill of health, the inspector was very complimentary of both the quality of work and the play area overall.

After a few little odds and sods were finished off by Care For Your Area first thing this morning, the play area was officially opened for use at 10:30.

The honour of being the first to use the play area went to local residents Brian and Margaret Moon, or more specifically to their young grandson, Alexander (pictured below).

(left to right) Cllr Andrew Sherris, Margaret Moon, grandson Alexander, Brian Moon, and myself

Despite the play area already being open there remains a final bench to be installed, but we are considering relocating this slightly from its planned position to benefit from the shade of the nearby copse of trees. A request has also been received for a dog tether to be sited nearby and we hope this is something we may able to provide shortly through our ward budget. Suggestions for any further improvements are, as always, welcome.

All that remains is to give thanks to Yarm Councillor Andrew Sherris, former Yarm Councillor Jenny Beaumont and particularly to (the camera shy!) Tony Raine of Stockton Council for their work and tireless dedication in bringing this scheme forward three years ago and seeing it through to a successful conclusion.

Leven Park play area to open within days

Following a site visit last week, I am delighted to confirm the Leven Park play area is now in a suitable condition to be opened.

The necessary post installation inspection by ROSPA has been arranged for Thursday 22nd August. Once this has been completed, and assuming no problems have been identified, we should be able to open the play area in time for the Bank Holiday weekend.

Whilst this is later than we had previously hoped, and whilst there are a few minor snagging issues that will be addressed by Care For Your Area in the coming days, we will finally have a long overdue play area on the east side of Yarm for families to use and enjoy for years and decades to come.

Although we have not experienced any noticeable anti-social behaviour or vandalism whilst the installation work has been ongoing, the CCTV camera will remain in place for now. The long-term need for this will be reviewed in the coming months with a view to its removal if it is felt to be no longer required.

Leven Park play area - some good news!

I am pleased to confirm that progress on the play area is proceeding not just well, but better than was initially anticipated.

As many residents will already have seen, the vast majority of the work has already been completed. Even given the inclement weather when construction first started, work has progressed on schedule and is now largely completed.  In addition, and as a consequence of negotiations conducted by Councillor Sherris, we have been able to secure a extension to the new footpath over and above what was initially planned, and at no additional expense to the town.

Whilst the construction work was always planned to be completed within the next few weeks, it was initially believed that it would take up to 2-3 months for the groundworks to 'bed-in' before the play area could be used. I am therefore delighted to say that, subject to the necessary assessment by and approval from ROSPA, it now appears that there is a good chance that the play area will be ready for use in the coming weeks (ie during the school holidays).

We expect to receive a further update tomorrow and will update residents accordingly.

New footpaths and cycleways proposed for Levendale Estate, Yarm

We are pleased to announce that in conjunction with Stockton Borough Council we will shortly start consulting residents on proposals to create a new footpath and cycle way linking parts of the Levendale estate to Levendale Primary School.

Levendale Primary School, Yarm

Constructed during the 1970s, the Levendale estate lacks the traffic-free cycleways and 'safe routes' to the centrally located primary school that would today be insisted upon.  Not only is there no dedicated pedestrian route linking the estate to the school, neither does such a route exist linking much of the estate to the local shop.

At a meeting attended by Councillor Sherris and I, draft plans to build a new footpath & cycleway running through what was the pylon corridor linking Kirk Road with Glaisdale Road, and running east/west linking the aforementioned path with the primary school and continuing on to Mount Leven Road, near Bankside, were discussed in detail.

In order to further enhance the safety of children travelling to school, plans to implement a 20mph zone in the vicinity of the school are also to be consulted upon.

The necessary £150,000 funding for the scheme has already been secured, following a successful bid to the Department for Transport Links to Schools and Communities budget (managed by Sustrans) with matched funding being stumped up by Stockton Council.

In addition, Sustrans have also allocated a further £8,500 to promote the scheme and to work with pupils and staff at Levendale Primary School.

It is important to stress that no decisions have been taken at this stage and we are extremely keen to hear residents' views on the key principles of the scheme.

Following our success in, eventually, securing the funding for the new play area at Leven Park, we are delighted we have now been able to secure this additional money for further infrastructure improvements in Yarm.

We hope to shortly announce the date of a drop-in consultation at which residents can view the initial draft scheme and to make their opinions heard. Should you not be able to attend the forthcoming consultation, please don't hesitate to contact me directly for further details.

Finally, a mention and our thanks should go to Jonathan Kibble at Stockton Council for all his hard work in securing the funding and progressing the concept thus far.

Council u-turn sees Yarm get its new play area after all

A rare U-turn by Stockton Council means that a new play area will be built at Leven Park in Yarm, just days after it was announced that the plans would have to be shelved.

For the past three years, local councillors have been working on plans that would see a new play area - the first, in fact - delivered on the east side of Yarm.

Although the funding has been in place from the outset, the scheme has been beset by a number of delays following consultations held with residents which saw a number of revisions made to the plans (most controversially, the addition of CCTV to allay residents' fears of the area attracting anti-social behavior).

However, at a meeting last week attended by myself and Councillor Sherris, officers from Stockton Council made it clear that they were no longer in a position to pay for the ongoing maintenance of the park and, unless another soure of funding could be found, the plans would have to be scrapped.

It goes without saying that when the outcome of the discussions were detailed at that evening's meeting of Yarm Town Council, the atmosphere was less than jovial.

A combination of further pressure from councillors as well as from dismayed residents led to a further meeting arranged for Tuesday evening, once again attended by myself and Councillor Sherris.

After much negotiation, Stockton Council agreed to reverse their position and to pay for all of the play area's maintenance and CCTV monitoring, everything except for the regular cleaning of the area which is to be paid for from local councillors' ward budget for, at least, the next three years.

It's mildly amusing to see all and sundry attempting to take the credit for securing the u-turn, including the so-called Yarm Residents' Association, the content of their website ostensibly written by Walter Mitty (Thurber's fictional character oft thought of as the Mayor of fantasyland and described by American Heritage Dictionary as "an ordinary, often ineffectual person who indulges in fantastic daydreams of personal triumphs").

Nevertheless, it would be wrong for the credit for finally securing the play park to go to anybody other than Councillor Sherris, who has been the scheme's driving force since day one and continues to work hard with me in endeavouring to secure long-term funding for the area's maintenance.

It is hoped that the new park should be installed and ready to go before the schools break for summer, but I hope to have this confirmed in the next few days.