New Children’s Play Ground
Spring Bank Holiday Weekend – the New Kids Playground is Open
The new kids playground was in full swing in time for the spring bank holiday weekend (May 2009). When we checked it out today, the play area was packed with children of all ages who seemed to be having a whale of a time, if their squeals of delight were anything to go by!
The new play area is situated on the north foreshore, behind the Arnold Palmer crazy golf. Walk northerly, past the Pier, and diagonally cross the Pier Field. You can see it from North Parade.
It’s an absolutely brilliant design, incorporating lots of exciting, unusual rides and experiences for the children. The vibrant primary colour scheme adds to the attraction.
We must say that never before has Skegness had such an excellent outdoor play area for children, and what’s more, it’s completely FREE!
We monitored the development progress of the new play area, right from it being a mere twinkle in the eye of Skegness Town Council. Read on…
Skegness Sunshine Corner Play Area
Children’s Paddling Pool Redevelopment
Work has begun to transform the former Sunshine Corner Children’s Paddling Pool in Skegness, into a new children’s play area, which is expected to be completed for the end of April.
After consultation with the public in March 2007, Skegness Town Council released the following plan of how the new play area will look when finished. Click the image to enlarge.
We went along to the development area, adjacent to the Pier Field on North Parade, to take some video footage for posterity. We captured the workmen as they were smashing up the former paddling pool, which formed the word ’sunshine’.
Enter the password ’skegness’ to view our video.
One of the workmen told us that they had found lots of old bottles and jam jars as they were excavating two large rectangular holes. Our two pictures below show some of these old bottles. As the Sunshine Corner was built in the early 1930s as part of the foreshore redesign by Rowland Jenkins, the bottles must be around 80 years old!
Unfortunately, the old bottles were smashed by vandals when they were left overnight on site, despite the area being sealed off from the public. The broken glass, next morning, caused problems for the workers when one of the vehicles sustained a puncture due to the glass.
As a local historian, I feel a little sad that the word ’sunshine’ hasn’t been incorporated into the new play area design, but let’s hope that it will be named “Sunshine Play Ground”, ensuring that a link to the past will not be severed for ever!
I must say, it’s quite an improvement, although sceptical before, but again, saying that, I still believe that the sunshie pool could have been improved.