The council received the tenders back for the playground last week. They will be appointing SSG contractors who are experienced and have a good reputation. They should be starting on site in late January.
The tenders were over budget and some work has been done to get them on track. This has meant that a few items of equipment have been omitted, for the time being at least. The space will be left to site them should we get more money.
We have had lots of comments about the loss of the 1960s slide, which I do empathise with. We are replacing it with one of equal height which is currently a double slide (unless someone cost cut without telling me…but I’ll be on their case if they have). We have organised that the old one is taken to a new home and not scrapped. It will go to a supervised playground with staff, which gets round the safety concerns. Once it’s installed I’ll give you an update, so you can always go and fondly reminisce. We have a little continuity with the retention of our quirky spider. There were of course raised eyebrows at its retention.
We have progressed the project for the gates separately. Last summer artist Sally Adams (who took part in Brockley open studios this summer) and I did an artwork shop with a group of children at Gordonbrock. They came to the park and did lots of drawings of the plants and wildlife.
The following week they worked with these drawings to create positive and negative shapes. These were used for the design, which has been put together by Sally. They are now being forged by the artist blacksmith Heather Burrell in Deptford. Children from Gordonbrock Primary School who have been involved in the design work should have an opportunity to see Heather at work and take part in an art workshop and exhibition in late January. We are very excited at the prospect of showing off their beautiful drawings and the designs at an exhibition at APT studios. So far scheduled for Saturday 30th January 2010, from 12 until 3pm.
