New £450K kids playground at Pontefract Park unveiled just in time for Easter

Despite minor vandalism reported last week, the new-look playground at the park has opened bang on schedule for families to enjoy the new offerings during the Easter holidays.

Wakefield Council has invested £450,000, to create a site that offers 30 new play items for children to come for adventure and thrills.

The new play area reflects Pontefract’s heritage, as a town with a racecourse and castle, with a fairy tale theme.

Younger children can go on a dragon hunt, make potions, follow a trail to a ‘gingerbread house’ style unit or ride a horse to the stable’s playhouse.

Older children can play at the ‘castle on the hill’ with its embankment slide, cableway and a ‘giant’s unit’ that is almost 9 metres tall - equivalent to the height of two stacked double-decker buses.

There is a wheelchair-friendly roundabout, a ‘you and me’ swing seat, and to spark the imagination a storyteller’s circle for a spot of quiet reading and the chance to take story time outside.

The makeover of the play area is the latest project the council has undertaken, as part of its commitment to spend £1.8m on parks across the district.

The authority has already transformed the play area in Wakefield’s Thornes Park which re-opened at the end of 2022.

Work has begun on a new play area in Queens Park in Castleford, and is expected to be completed in April. Improvements to play facilities in Vale Head Park in Hemsworth and Haw Hill Park in Normanton are also planned this year.

Gary Blenkinsop, service director for Environment, Street Scene, and Climate Change, said: “I am pleased to see the new play area open in time for the Easter holidays. It is a fantastic place to visit and keep children and young people busy.

“We have listened to our residents, who responded to the consultation we undertook before work began on the site. They asked for better equipment and more for children with disabilities and that is what we have done.”