17th June 2024 – The Park Play Area will be closed from the 18th June
Further works to the play area at Robert Ashton Memorial Park will begin on Tuesday 18 June, which will see much of the remaining work beginning. Our contractors, Groundwork Inc. will be on-site for around two weeks, which will see work items such as those below being undertaken.
Remedial work to surfaces underneath play equipment
Remedial work to the surface between the tall slide and swings
Additional planting and seeding of areas
Installation of baby swings
Lining of the courts
The work is anticipated to last for two weeks and for most of it, the play area will unfortunately be closed to the public. To minimise disruption, we opted to undertake this work after the half-term holidays. We sincerely apologise for the additional disruption.
Once the play area is re-opened, we’ll update here on our website and on our social media channels.
17th April 2024, after a further inspection the Council decided to only part close the Park Play Area
Drainage tests were carried out and in the interests of the public being able to use the park play equipment, a decision was made to only fence off the large slide area.
11th April 2024 – Council to Close the Park Play Area *
Following the recent informal inspection, Meltham Town Council have taken the decision to close the play area, the unrelenting weather and footfall on the newly turfed areas is just creating large muddy patches and pooling of water.
We hope that by doing this, we are giving the grass time to recover, allowing remedial drainage work to be done to ascertain the extent of the problems.
The new toddler swings will also be installed while closed.
We apologise for any inconvenience caused during this period but hope by taking this action now it will benefit the park and our great town for years to come.
Fencing, accompanied with signage will arrive ASAP next week to block off all entrances to the play area.
Please check our social media channels and our website for further updates as to when the park will re-open.
3rd April 2024 – Update Regarding Drainage and Toddler Equipment
Meltham Town Council fully understands the frustrations with the current condition of the surfaces within the Robert Ashton Memorial Park play area.
By way of an update, today (Wednesday 3 April), the Town Clerk, Town Mayor and the Project Manager from Kirklees Council Parks team and a representative from the contractors met on-site to appraise the current position. At short notice, local firm CMP Groundworks were able to be on-site to offer expertise in this area and will be putting together a potential solution, to back this up we have another specialist draining company doing a site visit next week who will be doing the same.
The toddler swings are on order and will be installed within the coming weeks. All bolts on all the equipment were checked and tightened and the manufacturer will be on-site this week to reconfirm the installation.
In the meantime, we would encourage visitors to the park to stay off the muddy areas, use the path to access the play equipment and seating, with lots of people walking in the grassed areas it will inevitably cause the already saturated ground to become worse. If you could ask your children to do so that would be a great help.
As a council we realise how frustrating this situation has become, rest assured we are taking steps to get this remedied in the quickest, safest way possible.
What is really needed is for the weather conditions to improve; it continues to rain heavily and frequently. Indeed, the last 18 months have seen the highest rainfall ever recorded in England.
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The Robert Ashton Memorial Park refurbishment is nearing completion, but it isn’t yet complete. Following a consultation process which ran from 2021 through to 2022. The old equipment was very much in need of replacement. Throughout the consultation, our objectives, driven by input from residents was to provide a play area and space which complimented the range of existing play facilities across the Township; e.g. the recently refurbished Broadlands Recreation Ground and The Pleasure Grounds play space. Each site offers a differing range of play provision.
Since the refurbishment work was completed, we have not promoted completion of the works to the park, but the play area is available to play on. One of the key drivers behind this is that the ground is very wet. Since we put the first spade in the ground last November, there has been constant wet weather, which whilst you would expect that during the last few months, it has been relentless. We can’t keep the play area closed off and we acknowledge that ‘Keep of the grass’ signs will largely be ignored. We need to see better weather and completion of the works.
There remains a number of items of work to be completed, namely;
Installation of a fence behind the four memorial benches
Further planting, turfing and grass seeding, which can’t be done until later in the year, we’re still in early March
Installation of baby seated swings, which will be done following a decision to confirm it’s location by Town Councillors at the meeting in March
Remedial works to paths which have been subject to minor flooding
Jet washing and relining of the tennis and basket ball courts
Review of additional snagging list items, which includes outstanding site meetings to reflect on the quality of some of the work
There were a number of conversations with landscape architects and RoSPA about the broader design detail; one which had a lengthily debate and multiple site meetings revolved around the prospect of installing a gate at the entrance off Hall Close, into the park. To install a gate at that location, where there has never been one, is actually a challenge in it’s own right as there are a number of DDA design considerations; and any implementation would require a much more bespoke and involved piece of work. For example, installing a gate at the top of the ramp is not DDA compliant, installing a barrier doesn’t resolve the problem and installing a gate further along the path would ruin one of the quirks that Robert Ashton Memorial Park is known for, which is learning to bike ride along the circular path. Therefore the siting of the benches and trimming of existing hedges around the park has been undertaken to increase the field of view from across the park, whilst we review the impact of the wider changes to play provision. How residents and young people use the new facilities is of particular interest.
The play equipment within Robert Ashton Memorial Park was procured from long established manufacturers of play equipment, we wanted the design of the equipment to blend with the wider setting of the park. The equipment has been installed to include wet pour wear & impact pads (rubberised tarmac) as well as eco grass mats. The equipment, installation and quality of the play equipment has been inspected and reviewed by The Royal Association for the Prevention of Accidents. Meltham Town Council undertake weekly inspections of all our assets, including our owned play equipment (i.e. that at Robert Ashton Memorial Park) and an annual safety inspection up to now has been undertaken by Wicksteed, who are independent inspectors.
The project in all represents an investment of £270,000 in The Robert Ashton Memorial Park and is the first phase of a broader investment in the park, following consultation specifically about the park and the broader ‘Ask Meltham’ survey, in which the park featured prominently as being an area which required investment.
Meltham Town Council always welcome feedback on all aspects of matters which impacts our residents, you can contact the Town Councillors or complete the contact form on our website: https://melthamtowncouncil.gov.uk/contact/
