Basildon Council to spent almost £120,000 on play areas

Basildon Council is set to award Wickstead Leisure Limited £24,700 for the supply and installation of new play equipment at Partridge Green, as well as £34,816 for new play-park facilities at Ashfields.

A separate contract for £59,709 is set to be awarded to Kompa Limited for new equipment at Mayland Path and Marden Ash.

The contracts still need to be signed off by council officers, however they have been recommended for approval and Labour deputy leader, Adele Brown, has praised the plan.

She said: “I think everyone wants their kids to have a decent and safe place to live and play and that is part of the park regeneration, whether that is fixing the play equipment, or working with police, or working with our street scene team.

“All these things enable a better environment to live in. That is what is in the local plan and regeneration is about a total picture of the ambition we have, for what Basildon could be to work in, live in and go to school in.”

Ms Brown added that a large part of the strategy for further improving play areas and play equipment across the borough will be via the new “area committees”, which have been established for Wickford, Laindon, Pitsea, the new town of Fryerns and St Martins and Billericay.

She said: “We want to enable councillors, whether or not they are in the administration, to use the area committees to allow the creation of play equipment. There may be other things they need, but it is to give them the autonomy and the budget to do the things they want in their area.

“Play areas are something the area committees will drive. They understand their areas the best and one purpose they have started is to determine what needs updating, what needs more money than previously planned for and more.

“They have been established and each has a chair and a vice chair.”

In November 2023, it was announced that £500,000 of contracts had been awarded for the creation of play equipment.