Community celebrates opening of new Daubeney Fields’ playground
Local parents and children enjoyed celebrating the launch of Daubeney Fields’ newly refurbished playground, which was developed in partnership with the park-user group Daubeney Fields Forever and through consultations with residents and local primary schools.
The new Daubeney Fields play area, located in King’s Park, was officially opened by Mayor of Hackney Phillip Glanville and Deputy Mayor Cllr Feryal Clark, at a ribbon-cutting ceremony at Hackney Council’s Moving Together launch and funday.
As an inner London borough, we think it’s important to give children as many opportunities to play outside as possible. Play is really important: it's a process by which our children learn and grow as individuals, it’s how they develop new skills, it's how they challenge themselves, and it’s how they learn to evaluate risk. This is why it's vitally important that children have access to good quality play spaces, which provide opportunities for our children to challenge themselves and a landscape which allows more imaginative play.
The refurbishment transformed a hard, underused space into a fully playable landscape, which features extra green space, mounding, logs, boulders and planting which helps to tie the traditional play equipment together into a singular playscape. The play area also has an area which can be used by local schools as an outdoor classroom.
Anshu Ahuja, a parent who lives around the corner from the park, said: “The new playground has actually transformed the use of Daubeney Fields. It’s quite a simple transformation; a few new slides and a couple of new swings, and some nice plants and things like that, but it’s just made such a difference. People from around these streets of this playground will hopefully come together here and we can meet our neighbours and all sit down and have a picnic together!”
Stefano, 8, said: “I find it really fun here because there’s lots of slides and activities here, and it’s really easy to make friends!”
The London Marathon Charitable Trust donated £75,000 towards the playground, and £40,000 was donated by the Veolia Environmental Trust, which added to the Council’s initial £45,000 of funding.
Sarah Ridley, Chief Grants Officer at The London Marathon Charitable Trust said: “The Trust is delighted to see the newly refurbished Daubeney Fields playground open and enjoyed by local families after having contributed a grant of £75,000 towards the improvements. For many children, play is a natural route into physical activity, and this new playground will help to provide high quality, exciting play opportunities for local children and young people.
“The Trust’s mission is to challenge inequality of access to physical activity by funding projects that help people to become and remain physically active regardless of age, gender, ability, race or background, and playgrounds such as this are an excellent way for many children to develop a more physically active lifestyle.”
A spokesperson for the Veolia Environmental Trust said: “We’re proud that we’ve been able to support this excellent and inspiring play area with a grant made through the Landfill Communities Fund. We have no doubt that it will continue to be well used for generations to come.”
View more images of the playground and funday.