Children's playpark BULLDOZED over fears rain-soaked slide is 'safety hazard'

Places for People, who manage the estate in west Nottingham, said heavy rainfall left the playground in a condition where it “no longer met the current safety standards”.

One parent said the council told families the rain made the slide too slippery, but failed to realise that all slides become slippery when wet.

Consequently, the playpark was dismantled, with the supposedly hazardous slide ripped out, as well as the other equipment.

However, what has been left has been described by residents as a “quagmire” with nowhere for the children to play, the Sun reports.

Diane Short, 69, said her 11 grandchildren had always enjoyed the playpark, but now they have “nowhere to go”.

Another resident, Julie McTague, 66, said the area looks “awful now”.

Places for People have since told residents they would need to pay to reinstate the playground.

Initially residents thought they would have to pay £25 a week for the play area, but the housing association has since clarified that it is £25 a year.

Labour councillor Steve Battlemuch acknowledged the playground “wasn’t big” but it offered a place of enjoyment for families in the area, but now was simply a “pile of mud”.

Mr Battlemuch, who is a member of Nottingham City Council, told GB News that he is having a meeting with Places for People “in a couple of weeks” to discuss the playground.

The housing association said: “We consulted residents and the majority didn’t want to replace it.

“We are exploring community improvements.”

Other children across the country are being failed like those in Nottingham, as playgrounds suffer loss of funding.

In Leicester, managers of several long-running adventure playgrounds warned late last year that their services were at risk due to funding cuts.

In November, scheme leaders said they feared for their future after Leicester City Council confirmed it could no longer afford the £1.1million in annual support provided to nine playground projects across the city.

The funding had originally been due to end in March 2025, but the authority agreed to extend it by a year to give organisations time to find alternative sources of income.

Despite the extension, playground managers said they were struggling to secure replacement funding ahead of the April 2026 deadline.

Many of the schemes have been running for more than 50 years and provide after-school activities and holiday support for children in some of Leicester’s most deprived areas, the BBC reported.

One manager said many schemes were “on the edge”, warning that some may be forced to reduce services to a skeleton operation if new funding cannot be found.

Others said staff had already been issued redundancy notices as uncertainty over the future of the playgrounds grows.

Leicester City Mayor, Sir Peter Soulsby, said the playgrounds had provided “incredibly valuable” play and educational opportunities for young people for decades.

However, he said the council had faced an “unprecedented loss of funding capacity”, making it increasingly difficult to continue providing financial support.

Council leaders have said they are exploring possible solutions, including transferring ownership of some playground buildings to community groups under a community asset transfer scheme in the hope it could help them secure long-term funding.