London Play, a charity working to promote children’s play across the capital, is working with the Friends of Lordship Rec to raise £5,250 for the creation of a natural play area at the recently refurbished park.

What we'll deliver:

• The natural play area will consist of grass mounds, balancing logs, seating and a climbable play sculpture

Why it's a great idea:

Research has shown that ‘…as well as the benefits to their health and well-being, engaging children in natural play at a young age can result in lifelong positive attitudes about nature and the wider environment.’ (John Plowman, Chair of the London Sustainable Development Commission, in ‘Sowing the Seeds’, November 2011)

The play area will provide a local landmark in the large flat green space near the main entrance of the park and invite new visitors to further explore the recently refurbished park.

Our natural play areas are cheaper to install and maintain than comparable off-the-shelf manufactured play equipment

Maintenance and repairs can be done by local people such as ‘friends of the park’ groups

The area will be designed to meet the wishes and needs of local families, something which is often difficult to achieve with ‘identikit’ catalogue equipment.

Steps to get it done:

• Our award-winning engineering team will provide consultation, design, construction, landscaping and evaluation.

London Play has an excellent track record of delivering similar projects in other London boroughs – for details please see our website at http://www.londonplay.org.uk

Half of the project’s £10,500 total cost will be met by London Play’s Natural England funding.

The project offers further excellent value for money, typically at half the cost of manufactured ‘steel and rubber’ type catalogue equipment. This is achieved through the use of recycled and free materials (tree logs saved from the saw mill courtesy of London Play’s partners Gristwood & Tom’s), and employing corporate volunteer teams to accomplish tasks such as soft landscaping to cut down on labour costs.