Three of Greenwich Council’s adventure play centres face closure under plans to save £600,000 per year from town hall budgets.
Of the five play centres – which offer adventure playgrounds together with supervised activities for 30 hours – per week, only one, on Plumstead Common, will remain open in its current form.
A second, on the Meridian Estate in west Greenwich, would be closed but redeveloped and reopened as a “community youth hub” with supervised activities.
But the remaining three centres — in Woolwich, the Glyndon Estate in Plumstead and Coldharbour in Mottingham – will lose their supervised sessions.
The Woolwich adventure playcentre is set for closure, and would be replaced with an unsupervised multi-use games area in Maryon Park, Charlton; while the Glyndon building is scheduled for closure, with its playground also becoming unsupervised.
On the Coldharbour Estate, the only centre in the south of the borough, an unsupervised playground would remain but money from developers would be used to build a new community hub instead.
There has been uncertainty over the centres since the cuts were signed off by councillors in March, to the frustration of staff and campaigners hoping to keep the centres. A campaign was quickly launched to save Plumstead, the busiest centre, although this has now broadened out to cover all the centres.
The council finally announced on November 10 that a consultation would begin on Monday, but even then residents were left waiting until after 4pm for confirmation of the planned closures.
The Woolwich centre, which has been open since the 1970s, is close to the Woolwich Dockyard Estate and new social housing that has been built on the old Morris Walk Estate.
However, the council says that some equipment is broken and its location is “unsuitable” because of the “the health risks linked to traffic pollution from the nearby main road”.
It insists that facilities will be improved, even if supervised sessions will close.
Sandra Bauer, the cabinet member for equality, culture and communities, said: “We know how important good play facilities are to our communities, that’s why we’re investing £600,000 to improve some of our adventure play centres and bring them up to the standards our children, young people and families deserve.
“These proposals could include longer opening hours, repurposing and improving the play offer or providing more suitable facilities nearby. We’re not proposing any changes to Plumstead Adventure Play Centre. It’s important to us that families, young people and staff have a chance to have their say, which is why we are currently consulting on proposed changes to our adventure play offer.”
Conservative leader Matt Hartley, who represents Mottingham, Coldharbour & New Eltham ward with his party colleague Roger Tester, welcomed the plans for a community hub at the Coldharbour site but added: “We cannot support axing the play centre service as Labour councillors intend to do.
“From the slick video the council leader Anthony Okereke put out with Clive Efford MP yesterday, they seem to think this is just a ‘playground’ – but as we’ve told them time and time again at the town hall, it is so much more than a playground – it’s a play centre. The staff there change lives every day.
“We hope residents will help save the staffed Coldharbour Adventure Play Centre service by taking part in the council’s consultation, and telling them why we need to keep a staffed, supervised play centre service at the heart of the estate as part of the new Community Hub.
The adventure play centres consultation is at adventure-play-centres.commonplace.is.
Amended at 10.35am to correct Sandra Bauer’s job title and at 6.45pm to include Matt Hartley’s comment.
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