The Eton Wick Newsletter - April 2008 - `Our Village' Magazine - OUR NEW PLAYGROUNDS

Haywards Mead Children's Play Area

Stockdales Road Children's Play Area

Our children's play areas, in Stockdales Road and Haywards Mead, are being completely renovated and upgraded, thanks to a huge community effort by the Eton & Eton Wick Partnership, who have raised £110,000, and £90,000 of that goes to the village, with the remainder going to the playground in Meadow Lane at Eton. 

Eton Town Council set up the Partnership in 2004 to tackle the anti-social behaviour problems in the village centre. Thames Valley Police, the Royal Borough, Windsor Housing, Eton College and others joined them to work together, and saw the problem pretty well disappear, but they went on to do other things to help, like arranging for the extra lighting in Haywards Mead and the car park, more staffing and projects for the Youth Club, the new CCTV camera, closing the rat run at Bellsfield Court and the drinking den in the recreation ground. In all twelve separate initiatives were undertaken. 

And then came the big one. The survey undertaken in 2006 —remember www.etonsurvey.com - showed that our rather tired playgrounds were a big issue for many of us, with lots of Mums and Dads taking their children to newer and better playgrounds in Datchet, Windsor and beyond. So the Partnership consulted the community, particularly the schools, playgroups, child minders and the youth club and then set about raising the necessary cash. The government's South East England Development Agency matched the Partnership's efforts pound for pound, and £110,000 has been raised altogether. 

These new facilities will benefit local children, helping their problem solving, improving confidence, and providing more social opportunities for them and for the rest of us as well. Initiatives from within our community of which we can all be proud. 

Philip Highy - Mayor 

Sue Warner - Partnership Chairman 

This article was first published in the first edition of the Eton Wick Newsletter in April 2008 and is republished here with the kind permission of the publishers, the Eton Wick Village Hall committee.

There are several articles about the history of the Eton Wick Recreation Grounds that can be found on this website by clicking on this link.

The images that illustrate this article are used with the courtesy of Google Maps.