*News* A popular children’s play area in The Grove will be removed due to expensive repairs being required, having lost the battle with nature. The castle was created in the early 1990s, and unusually, is built over an old air raid shelter.
Maintenance of the structure has been entrusted to the council contractor, Idverde.
Councillor Chris Williams told The Friends of The Grove: “Idverde were intending to carry out some much-needed remedial work on the outer surface. Unfortunately, the cleaning process exposed many areas where the castle needs repairing, i.e. many holes, steel exposed, and there is movement of the surface in some areas.
It looks like soil was covered over with some steel membrane framework and then coated in a spray concrete outer layer.”
He went on to say: “I’ve been informed by the Council that the play castle will be removed from the playground in The Grove in the near future. The costs to repair it are too expensive.”
The castle will be dismantled and turned into a large grass mound. In fact, this is how it once was.
New playground fencing will be added between the mound and the play area.
Councillor Chris Williams is an admin of the Facebook group, The Friends of The Grove. Do you remember playing on the structure? Or perhaps playing there with your children/grandchildren?
I used to love this castle play are as a child, it’s broken my heart to see it go, wish they could just repair it and make it safer, very sad news
Over the years i have seen so many kids get hurt there especially on wet days when rocks were slippery.
I recall taking my kids to play on the castle. I always was a bit dangerous but its a pity that there’s not the imagination or funds to replace it with something similar to fire off kids’ imaginations.
returning the grass mound is a much better idea……