Childrens playgrounds falling apart

Akrasia

Facilities for young people have never really been much of a priority in Ireland, but in the last 5 or 6 years, a whole load of childrens playgrounds were built around the country.

But in Clare where I am, these appear to be all falling into disrepair for the lack of simple maintance. It's such a shame to see them rusting and broken and wobbly after such a short length of time.

Is it just Clare County Council who are failing to maintain these facilities, or is it more widespread than this?

The amount of money to paint them or replace some worn out bearings and tighten some bolts is relatively tiny. Surely there was some kind of maintenance plan when they were built?

What's gonna happen when one of these things breaks, a child gets hurt and the parents sue the council and win?

Lisha

Most playgrounds are under care and maintenance of county councils.
Ring co council if they playground you are referring to falls under them.

Usually too playground installers name and number is on equipment . Ring them that might do maintenance.

truebluesac

In general All co. councils are the same at the moment , they havnt the money to be pro active and are mainly reactive . It takes an accident for them to sit up and and take notice . Its a faulse economy in my eyes as an accident cost more in the long term

lkionm

Put on a mask as gather a crack squad of handymen with tools and a van.

Drive around in the van with the masks on around playgrounds and fix them.

Ruudi_Mentari

Monseigneur, with this thread you are painting a apocalyptic picture of a future that decays before it even begins...

anncoates

Tne local authorities will be rolling in it when the influx of money from the Property Tax.......oh.

jimgoose

lkionm wrote: »

Put on a mask as gather a crack squad of handymen with tools and a van.

Drive around in the van with the masks on around playgrounds and fix them.

I second this. Ideally, you want a big black dude with a mohawk driving, and one fella who has to busted out of a psychiatric hospital for every job. There should be an embargo on Jibba-Jabba of all kinds, and fools who do not maintain playgrounds must be pitied. :cool:

Catphish

Most of them are in an awful state. The ones anywhere near me have been destroyed by teenagers and are full of rubbish. No way would I bring my children to them. The only one I bring them to is one on castle grounds which is a bit off the beaten track for the teenagers, so they don't bother with it.

SEPT 23 1989

The one in Griffeen Park in Lucan is well looked after

hoodwinked

most of them in Cork city are falling into disrepair too, and for some reason they built none out in the west side (the one in ballincollig is nearest to bishopstown or then is fitzgerarld park in the city center)

Douglas is full of broken glass and teenagers who abuse you if you are on 'their' swing when they arrive, and a badly designed slide where the highest point has a wide open drop, no side rails, no walls nothing but a wide open (roughly 7ft) drop for any child unfortunate enough to get a small bit of a shove or that stumbles at the top of the slide,


Carrigaline is great for anyone under 3 or over 10, anything in between and they are either too big and shoving the under 3's around, or getting in the way (slower to navigate the equipment than the teens tearing around the place) in the larger area.

ballinlough is pretty much swings only for anyone over 3 and these are in bad condition anyway so we also don't bother going there.

haven't been to any in the northside so cannot comment on those but they have way more play area's than the rest of the city combined...

Sam Crow

I know you shouldn't have to, but why can't people get together and maintain the place. Parents with kids who use it should get together, go down with a bunch of tools, and paint, and and a bit of elbow grease, and get the place back up to scratch.

If you try and get the council to do it, you'll end up waiting months for some overpaid health and safety goon with a clipboard to show up and declare the place unsafe for children.

lkionm

lkionm wrote: »

Put on a mask as gather a crack squad of handymen with tools and a van.

Drive around in the van with the masks on around playgrounds and fix them.

Nothing wrong with that idea, parents banding together and fixing up stuff in the locality. If Council cant/wont do it, great idea for the locals to take over.

Mind you, in this country , youd probably be arressted for interfering with Council property

McLoughlin

Jake1 wrote: »

Nothing wrong with that idea, parents banding together and fixing up stuff in the locality. If Council cant/wont do it, great idea for the locals to take over.

Mind you, in this country , youd probably be arressted for interfering with Council property

The locals wouldn't be insured to do the work.

Sleepy

Or sued for not being insured to carry out said maintenance etc.

The councils are broke because there's too many of them with too many staff and overheads. Unfortunately the solution involves making many of the staff redundant and weeding out the lazy "waiting on the pension" or "only turns up to the office during term-time for a gossip with the girls" types so it won't be implemented as no political party in Ireland has the balls to stand up to the unions.

McLoughlin

McLoughlin wrote: »

The locals wouldn't be insured to do the work.

true enoug, maybe they could band up as a Commando unit, do the works at night time Just a shame that NO one fixes it, just left there. I think Id try to do the repairs and feck the council

Miss Lockhart

Our local playgrounds are kept in good repair.

It would be a great pity to see them going to waste.

truebluesac

Wont sombody please thing of the childern

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Qh2sWSVRrmo

damoz

Why not be pro-active. Is there a community group or tidy towns etc. Its up to the locality to look after their amenities. Council don't have the resources. The trouble in Ireland is we are great at pointing out all the problems but utterly useless in doing anything about them. Id suggest getting off ones ass and doing something positive in the community.

Gran Hermano

damoz wrote: »

Why not be pro-active. Is there a community group or tidy towns etc. Its up to the locality to look after their amenities. Council don't have the resources. The trouble in Ireland is we are great at pointing out all the problems but utterly useless in doing anything about them. Id suggest getting off ones ass and doing something positive in the community.

So you get off your derriere and repair the playground. Some kid falls and ends up in A&E. Parents sue the council who in turn sue you as they blame the incident on unauthorised work. No thanks.

Catphish

damoz wrote: »

Why not be pro-active. Is there a community group or tidy towns etc. Its up to the locality to look after their amenities. Council don't have the resources. The trouble in Ireland is we are great at pointing out all the problems but utterly useless in doing anything about them. Id suggest getting off ones ass and doing something positive in the community.

Rubbish is not being collected from over flowing bins in playgrounds near me. You can set all the bags of community collected rubbish bags beside the bins you like, but they're not being collected often enough. Perhaps you'd like the community to put it in our own black bins to avoid attracting vermin? And I suppose we are also to mend the damage for the parents unruly teenagers?

I suggest one gets a grip.

Sir Humphrey Appleby

Akrasia wrote: »

Is it just Clare County Council who are failing to maintain these facilities, or is it more widespread than this?

Lets face the truth here, if the playground was that important to you and other parents you would be out there keeping it maintained first, and whinging on the net second.
No sympathy here for those who prefer to whine that somebody else wont do what they themselves could do, if they wern't so lazy!

your kids or your principals, which comes first?

Miss Lockhart

Old and grey wrote: »

Lets face the truth here, if the playground was that important to you and other parents you would be out there keeping it maintained first, and whinging on the net second.
No sympathy here for those who prefer to whine that somebody else wont do what they themselves could do, if they wern't so lazy!

your kids or your principals, which comes first?

You must have excellent liability insurance.

Corruptedmorals

Of course ideally those who want it fixed could help out and do it together, but it's been pointed out that the lack of public liability insurance makes this plan useless. My dad along with two others has taken down troublesome trees on our road for neighbours, knows exactly what he's doing and never miscalculated anything. But the residents association can't use them as a much, much cheaper alternative to a company because of the insurance. Which as a blanket measure is a good thing.

Sir Humphrey Appleby

Miss Lockhart wrote: »

You must have excellent liability insurance.

Piss poor retort. who mentioned insurance? you do not incur any liability by painting the swings or picking up litter.
I suggest that you educate yourself on the actual law before posting.

Miss Lockhart

Old and grey wrote: »

Piss poor retort. who mentioned insurance? you do not incur any liability by painting the swings or picking up litter.
I suggest that you educate yourself on the actual law before posting.

The things are broken and wobbly according to the OP.

hoodwinked

Old and grey wrote: »

Lets face the truth here, if the playground was that important to you and other parents you would be out there keeping it maintained first, and whinging on the net second.
No sympathy here for those who prefer to whine that somebody else wont do what they themselves could do, if they wern't so lazy!

your kids or your principals, which comes first?

we pick up and bin any broken glass we find, but its a bit pointless when said teenagers are back by 3pm that day!

martinedwards

I was at our local park recently, early in the morning (with my daughter ok?????) when the council van pulled up and the guy with the best job in the world got out and dawdled round the park, climbing up the climbing frame, walking over the wiggly bridge, stepping over the springy stepping stones......

he DIDN'T go down the slide ot on the zip line, but I bet if I hadn't been there........

I asked him and he said he works round the council area and checks all the parks. takes 3 days to get round them all and then he starts again.

damoz

Gran Hermano wrote: »

So you get off your derriere and repair the playground. Some kid falls and ends up in A&E. Parents sue the council who in turn sue you as they blame the incident on unauthorised work. No thanks.

exactly the attitude i'm talking about. No one is going to sue you for tightening a bolt. FWIW the playground in our village is excellent - maintained and litter free, mostly done by locals. Also, if i see teenagers acting up in it i tell them to leave as its for under 12s and they do.

Teyla Emmagan

Catphish wrote: »

Rubbish is not being collected from over flowing bins in playgrounds near me. You can set all the bags of community collected rubbish bags beside the bins you like, but they're not being collected often enough. Perhaps you'd like the community to put it in our own black bins to avoid attracting vermin? And I suppose we are also to mend the damage for the parents unruly teenagers?

I suggest one gets a grip.

This is a pathetic attitude. You simply get the local tidy towns or residents association to ring the council saying that the bins need to be collected more frequently in a specific spot and they will be. The councils may have no money for repairs but they still have plenty of staff to come out and pick up rubbish. It's just a question of nagging enough. And why is the community collected rubbish being left beside a playground?

RayCon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93X32wUJMiA

hoodwinked

damoz wrote: »

exactly the attitude i'm talking about. No one is going to sue you for tightening a bolt. FWIW the playground in our village is excellent - maintained and litter free, mostly done by locals. Also, if i see teenagers acting up in it i tell them to leave as its for under 12s and they do.

come tell the drunken teenagers in Douglas that and they'll be telling you where to go fairly quick,


most of them have a 10pm curfew so they drink early so they'll be sobered up going home, meaning they are hammered by 3/4pm... and considering there is over 10 of them in the group they can be quite intimidating,

its well known they are the ones doing most of the damage, they break their 'naggins' (when they are done drinking) off the equipment, use their broken glass/lighters to cut/burn anything thats not metal,

it used be a gorgeous wooden play area. now its a cold ugly metal park, because they'd rather not police these teens, the gardaí get more abuse from the parents and of course the usual *my so and so isn't involved with that* rubbish spouted.

hiber

We have been visiting a LOT of playgrounds in the Dublin area and it seems to me that some parts of the city are extremely neglected. In our area (Ballsbridge) most of the parks / playgrounds are neat, if something happens, the swings / roundabouts are replaced soon (by the council I reckon), but let's say yesterday we visited three playgrounds in Ballymun and apart from the first one (Coultry Park), the other two (Shangan Park and the one in Whiteacre Crescent) were in an awful state of repair (the playground in Shangan Park does not exist anymore we can say). I think it is a shame that some areas can be looked after, while others are absolutely gross.

gobnaitolunacy

Jake1 wrote: »

true enoug, maybe they could band up as a Commando unit, do the works at night time Just a shame that NO one fixes it, just left there. I think Id try to do the repairs and feck the council

Can't do it at night, my local one doubles as a knacker-drinking den for underage drinkers.

rubadub

hoodwinked wrote: »

we pick up and bin any broken glass we find

You'd want to be careful doing that, apparently several posters are aware of judges who might prosecute you if some kid cuts themselves on a bit you missed.