Making smiles at Millom Playground


Millom Town Council worked alongside Copeland Borough Council and the local community to raise funds to create ‘the best play area in the North West’ that would provide a real boost to the young people of Millom and bring visitors and tourism to this small coastal town situated on the edge of the Lake District National Park.

The brief

Although the playground was part of a larger open green space, the existing equipment was minimal, outdated and lacked imagination.  The Town Council wanted to create a playground that could be enjoyed by all ages and abilities, incorporating eye-catching themed elements that link to Millom’s rich mining history.

Over the last two years, Millom Town Council has worked with Playdale to make their playground dreams a reality and even visited Playdale HQ to meet the team behind the design.

Our talented team of designers and 3D visualisation team not only produced a detailed quotation, scaled plan, 2D illustrations and 3D imagery, but we also created a 3D ‘walk through’ video so that our adventure playground proposal could really come to life.

 

When designing the play area, our team had to consider the technical challenges that came with a  playground that was located on a hill. To overcome this challenge the design team created elevated areas within the design and ensured hardstanding areas ran through the playground creating access for all.

Using bright and colourful wet pour safety surfacing can really enhance and ‘bring to life’ a themed playground so we knew this would be an essential element of the design.  The surfacing has many different themes which incorporate the local surroundings and mining history as set out of the brief.

The surfacing was installed by RTC Safety Surfaces Ltd who we have worked with on similar large scaled designs such as Weymouth Sea Life Adventure Park. As always, they did a fantastic job and the surfacing alone will really capture the imaginations of visitors to the playground.

The new playground

The playground now has a fantastic mixture of both stainless steel and timber equipment for children of all ages and abilities. The pieces of play equipment selected for the playground gives so much variety for children and each product has its own play values and benefits. The products included on this site are:

A wow factor customised Mountain Tower Plus, a Board Rider, Rota Bounce, Diamond Climber, and Mega Swing which are all situated in the sky themed area of the playground.

An Embankment Slide leads down into the land themed area which included lots of inclusive elements such as our bestselling Inclusive Orbit, Gravity Bowl, Gravity Rider and Play Panels.

The mining themed area features a Jukebox Plus unit with inclusive access, Junior Swings,  Bubble Tunnel, a Play Train, items from our City Movers range, Loudspeakers and a bespoke Play Panel linking to Millom’s mining history.

A separate toddler area links to Millom’s coastal location and features items from our timber Adventure Trail range, Toddler Swings, an Octopus Tunnel, Whale Springer and a Play Galleon Plus.

Our installation team, led by Mick O’Doherty, Contracts Manager and Lee Corbett, External Operations Manager did a fantastic job from beginning to end.

Contacts Manager Mick O’Doherty and Mike Starkie, Copeland’s elected mayor on opening day.

If you’re looking for playground inspiration and advice, why not request your copy of our  latest catalogue using the below form.

 

 


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