St Albans Playground Appeal

*WE HAVE A DATE!* The FVPF are incredibly excited to be sharing this much-expected news with all our supporters. Our shiny new playground will start being built on the 19 June, with completion expected to be the *19 July*! Our last update was on the 27 January, when our specification was published by St Albans City and District Council for companies to tender for the project. We had 4 companies bidding. Two were ruled out as they didn't meet the specification leaving two good contenders. After a number of meetings, we agreed with the Council that HAGS SMP (www.hags-smp.co.uk) had provided us with the best proposal and the best value for our money. They were very accommodating with all our requests, and committed to producing equipment that still delivers the natural look we aspired to as well as being durable and in line with the warranties required by the Council. All we can say is that we'll have what we wished for and more! We are waiting for the Council to share some visuals with us so we can share it with you here (we couldn't wait any longer though - we had to let you all know!) Thank you all for your patience, we know the long wait has been very frustrating for all - believe us, we would have loved to have the playground ready a long time ago. Thank you all again for your support and for making this a reality. Here's to many happy children having an active, playful childhood! All the best from The FVPF

It’s been a while since we last posted an update here regarding developments with the new playground. Do trust us, things are progressing nicely! We are currently working closely with our partners at St Albans District Council (SADC) to finalise the design specification that will be used to send to prospective equipment suppliers to tender for the work. Our aim is to have this tender document ready by 15th September. The tendering and selection process will take place before the year’s end and we're expecting installation of the new playground to begin in the spring of 2017! The design expectation & equipment list remains similar to that previously communicated. The only changes are that one of our desired pieces of kit (Mobilus) is out of production and we have also removed the tree swing from the specification on guidance from our partners at SADC (forbidden to use living structures to support Children’s equipment) – We are exploring alternatives to both of these. So the kit list currently stands at: - Playable entrance (logs on end) - Two big swings - Two toddler swings - Sandpit with role-play features - Climbing circuit including slide (2 to 10 yrs) - Large climbing tree (6 to 13 yrs) or alternative - Basket swing - Play path through laurel bush plus rotating play feature probably giants stride - Relocated sea saw - Bouncy pit plus alternatives to Mobilus & tree swing. We’ll do our best to keep you updated with progress made over the forthcoming months but if you have any specific questions in the meantime please don’t hesitate to contact us on [email protected] or facebook.com/fvpfstalbans.​ With beast regards from the FVPF

We know we've been awfully quiet about the new playground (yay!) developments, but trust us, we've been working away in the background and have some good news to share. We were able to have a really constructive catch up with our partners at St Albans City and District Council (SADC) last week and things are really beginning to take shape and move forward. This is the first partly crowdfunded project the Council has ever dealt with, so both parties are working together to define the best approach. The FVPF fundraised a good 30% of the total cost and we truly hope our ambition of delivering a more natural and sustainable play area will be achieved. FVPF will be working closely with SADC in the next few months with the tendering process to select a suitable supplier who can fulfil our vision of the new playground. As for the big question - when exactly will have a new playground in Victoria Playing Field, we are confident that if all goes to plan with the tendering process then work could conceivably begin on the new facility in September/October 2016 completing sometime in the spring of 2017. Thank you once again for all your support and we'll keep you posted! The FVPF

Right folks, we have some amazing news to share with you - WE DID IT! We'll be updating you all shortly with more news. Thank you everyone for your support, we could not have done it without you. The Friends of Victoria Playing Field