Families can help choose best design for revamped Coronation Gardens play area

Young families in Southfields are being asked to take part in an online consultation that will select the best design for a local playground revamp.

Parents and children are being asked to choose from three designs for a new look play area in Coronation Gardens. The designs have been created following feedback from an earlier round of public consultation.

In total £143,000 has been set aside for the playground’s refurbishment, with a further £30,000 allocated for biodiversity improvements in and around the play area.

Judi Gasser, Cabinet Member for Environment, said: “We hope parents and children who live nearby and use this play area will have a look at these exciting designs and tell us which one they like best.

“Last summer’s initial consultation helped us to better understand what local residents think of the existing playground and how they felt it could be improved. Their feedback was really important in helping us create these three distinctive new designs and layouts for this popular community space.

“I’m delighted too that part of the project also involves an opportunity to encourage wildlife through improved biodiversity planting.

“We want to deliver an excellent new playground for children in the area and local families can play a pivotal role in helping us choose the right design.”

To view the designs and deliver their feedback, people should visit https://haveyoursay.citizenspace.com/wandsworthecs/coronation-gardens-23.

Residents who would prefer to fill in a paper copy of the questionnaire can email parks@enablelc.org or phone (020) 3959 0060. The consultation closes on May 17.

There will also be two drop-in sessions at Coronation Gardens where questions can be posed face-to -face with staff from the council’s leisure and culture contractor Enable. These information sessions will be held between 2pm and 5pm on Thursday, April 27 and between those times again on Thursday, May 11.

Coronation Gardens dates back to 1902 and commemorates the coronation of King Edward VII in August 1902. It was donated to the people of Wandsworth by Sir William Lancaster, a businessman, philanthropist and politician who served as the second Mayor of Wandsworth between 1901 and 1902 and who also co-founded the Putney School of Art and Design.