They were promised a sparkling £70,000 playground - and were expecting the traditional children's climbing frames and swings.But what they got looks more like a military cemetery, with one resident branding the minimalist play area a 'deathtrap'.
Sunderland Council has described the blocks as 'play features' at Diamond Hall Pocket Park in Millfield.
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This made me laugh and made me angry at the same time and there is nothing we can do about it. This park is in England, but, they're doing the same thing here. I've blogged about the horror before, with photos. Our lovely town park has been ruined by these "visionaries", they took out all the fun old stuff no one had ever been hurt on and replaced it with minimalist sculpture play grounds. There are high meaningless platforms with no safety railings, metal spiral climbing structures which lead no where and are dangerous as hell, weird modern swings no kid can reach and strange chain like benches you can't sit on. The park is now used mostly by drug dealers. I took Liss there once and she begs me to go back, and I say, no, it's nothing but a death trap. You can play in the yard swing. They also tore out the old sunny town pool which was always packed with kids and now all we have is a fancy indoor pool no one goes to. It's always empty except for a few old senior citizens in bathing caps because kids don't want to play inside all Summer.
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This made me laugh and made me angry at the same time and there is nothing we can do about it. This park is in England, but, they're doing the same thing here. I've blogged about the horror before, with photos. Our lovely town park has been ruined by these "visionaries", they took out all the fun old stuff no one had ever been hurt on and replaced it with minimalist sculpture play grounds. There are high meaningless platforms with no safety railings, metal spiral climbing structures which lead no where and are dangerous as hell, weird modern swings no kid can reach and strange chain like benches you can't sit on. The park is now used mostly by drug dealers. I took Liss there once and she begs me to go back, and I say, no, it's nothing but a death trap. You can play in the yard swing. They also tore out the old sunny town pool which was always packed with kids and now all we have is a fancy indoor pool no one goes to. It's always empty except for a few old senior citizens in bathing caps because kids don't want to play inside all Summer.
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How does this shit go on? Fat ass politicians sitting around too lazy to look at a program they're spending tax dollars on? Some weird "artist" who's fucking a society whore who's married to a senator? It's all bullshit, the world is full of bullshit.
30 comments:
Thats awful. But man, when I was kid we had the best time just playing in a tree, or under it digging. Or digging tunnels under the swingset and playing with those little army guys and exploding each other with dirt bombs. WE had playgrounds but who needed them? We made our own fun. I think kids now just want it all done for them, instant fun. Real fun gets you dirty and is work but it's fun work! Like fort projects that you had to hide from your parents. Stealing food from the house to pack a campout lunch. So fun!! This cement stuff is dangerous, if they wanted to use cement, they should have made a skate park, at least the kids would use that. More towns need to build them, kids need a place to skate & exercise & get out of the house off their asses.
rox
I blame BUSH!
A Park should be for everyone to enjoy. They should be a safe environment for all people. Not trashed, destroyed and unsafe. But some people don't care anymore. Its upsetting that more people allow children/teens to destroy these places.
Like a child is going to get any enjoyment from a cement art park.
You wan to know the newest fight in my town right now? The Gov signed the new budget Monday and our school district is getting 10% less funding. It has now come to light that the cafaterias have been using these foam disposal trays for serving meals (breakfast and lunch) and spends (wastes) $45,000/yr on them. Let's not even bring up the carbon footprint issue. It seems the old washable plastic trays are still in storage but it's too much trouble for them to be brought back into use. Ya, they would have to bring the old dishwashers back into use. It's a good goddamn I don't have kids in school anymore cause this really pisses me off! We'll see what they do next year when the budget WILL get cut again.
I guess a kid could do chalk art on all that concrete.
Every town should have a playground like that. Let those mouthy little bastards crack their faces open, then see how smart they are.
wow, can you imagine coming down on those stepping things and banging your crotch! That is dangerous. When I was little I decided to close my eyes and try and go through a cement tunnel at the park .there was rebar sticking out at the end and it went in my forehead. I looked like "Carrie" with the blood covering my face.. I remain just as graceful to this day! We are lucky in my area in that they do have nice parks for the kids. There are even doggie parks! We don't go to doggie parks though.Little Jax would get eaten!
p.s. In Baltimore City the budget is so bad that the city pools aren't being opened because they can't afford to open them. This while their mayor was recently ousted for stealing gift cards meant for needy people, and billed the city for trips and makeup artists. And she still gets her 80k pension.
That's why I am sick of Government!. The "S" after a few of them should stand for "Senile" not "Senator".
I watched Jack Murtha (former Marine Colonel and Vietnam vet), after he accused Marines In Haditha, Iraq, of murdering civilians in cold blood-without even a hearing; he just sentenced them like Obama claimed the cops acted stupidly during the beer summit.
Now we hear about him being investigated post-mortem regarding millions of dollars worth of bribes and contracts to family members. Oh yeah; a navy ship is being named after him also...what a bunch of corrupt ass holes.
And what are they doing working in Gov for 40 years like David Obey (D) finally retiring. All of them gotta go.
Jarhead
before i read the text i thoought that's what it was-a military memorial- and i thought the kid looked sad because he lost his dad. this sucks.
You cannot find one swing set at any of our city parks anymore. They eliminated them all. They even got rid of the big slides. Now they only have those short little plastic slides. Such a disappointment!
When I think back to the endless hours we all put into designing the town Playscape for our kids, ensuring that it was totally kid-safe and fun, and then to see such a sad, pathetic excuse for a play area pictured here, I'd like to wring the scrawny necks responsible. And I bet it cost LOTS of moolah to construct this cement travesty.
But, where were the parents when this was being proposed? We would have overrun our local town hall in protest.
The City of Colorado Springs has turned off 1/2 of all the street lights. They have also suspended all maintenance on city parks. So, if you, a citizen is so inclined feel free to mosey on over to your local park and and haul off the trash and mow and water in the dark. Hopefully we won't get much rain this summer and the grass won't grow. All the cracks in our system are starting to show.
I'm feeling sorry for today's kids. It recently dawned on me how lucky I was growing up. I know, I'm a slow learner, but I guess I figured everyone had it like this. City park across the street from my house. Big open baseball field by the street (in my front yard), up the slope were two tennis courts (could look out my bedroom window to see if there was a free court), basketball court, badminton court all with 10 ft chain link fencing around them (all the better to climb up! Don't fall, hard ground underneath). Behind them were the giant swings 15/20 ft high with real chains (try to get your swing going high enough to swing over the top and also climb up the poles to the top & look down on your friends), huge metal monkey bars (hang by your legs looks at the world upside down), 20 ft metal slide (burn your butt in the summer) and heavy metal teeter totters (plan on being the first one to jump off so your friend gets the hard butt bounce) and a large stone covered shelter. In the winter the city would flood the tennis courts and we had instant ice skating rink. Then if we got bored, the park was surrounded by woods (with a several hundred ft tall water tower to climb) and two creeks to explore. The park is still there, but most of the good stuff is gone.
(and that is probably how I survived my childhood. I grew up in a Hoarder House. No one was allowed past the living room. No one could ever stay over night or eat dinner with my family. Mother person said it wasn't allowed & it was too embarrassing for us kids. When my parents built the new house, everything from the old one was moved. When it came time to clean out the house several years ago, it took six of us two weeks, then the sibs left and it took me eight more months to finish.)
Poor little tykes today get cheapo plastic and a pile of sawdust.
This looks like an art installation that is ok for kids to play on. Maybe they eventually intend to turn it into an artsy garden?
our small town here has a wonderful & kind of fmaous park. Thankfully the kiddie area is very nice and kept updated & it's pretty clean. There is a walking path thru the park and we see trash when we walk it. It's between the pool & the Little League park ball diamond and the tennis courts & horseshoe area. So, it's kept nice. They even decorated the enire park this last x-mas with all sorts of lighted goodies and trees. We love our park. The citzens do help with some of the flower plantings. It's posted who is taking care of them. We still need a skate park. No chance. My son once got a ticket for rollerblading in town! 2 city cops and a sheriff and a stete trooper rolled up on him and he was given a ticket! $225!! That would have been a good time to rob a bank, while they ticket kids on skates!!!
rox
rox
We have really nice parks & playgrounds
with running paths walking trails bike lanes
and even no leash zone dog parks.
High park, grenedier pond, Edwards gardens
and the Toronto island parks to name a few.
All of these parks have a wiki page. -Kiki :)
Oh man! The first thing I pictured after looking at those pics is a kid with the skull cracked laying lifeless on the concrete.
Ugh, that happened at the elementary school I went to for three years. It used to have the best playground ever, with tire swings and jungle gyms and everything. A few years ago they tore it all down and put up "safe" equipment that is basically giant mounds of concrete you can sit on. Oooh, how fun.
It's sad that people go so overboard with paranoid safety concerns that they take away everything fun.
For roughly 100K+ US bucks it looks more like a bunch of foundations to other "fun" stuff.
I really don't know what a 100K buys you in concrete in England but, in my area it would buy you something like 400 cubic yards. This looks like MAYBE MAYBE <100. I hope these local folks know the word AUDIT!
As I said in the "Retard" section, I putting on a smile and thinking positive thoughts. I want to know what stones will give me a feeling of well being and joy. My birthstone is a diamond or white topaz. I have that. I also have brown quartz, blue topaz, and a string of lovely garnets. And Michael gave me a star opal. Will any of these help or is there something that will work even better? It's no use having this stuff if I don't wear it. I also have a tourquise native style (squash flowers)necklace. So I'm pulling this back out of the drawer. I just need help figuring out what the stones will help with! Figure out a good mix of healing stones. I'll have them dripping off me like Lil Egypt. Maybe a course in belly dancing would work. I know I got the belly for it!
Jane, what city are you in? Bellydancing is the one dance that is friendly for all sizes and all ages. My SIL started learning at 56!
This is a good directory of teachers by state if you are really interested:
http://us.bellydanceclasses.net/
As these kids grow up they can naturally evolve unto gas station parking lots, and then movie theater parking lots, and finally jail-house yards. But they will always remember the concrete slab back home, where they grew up and learned to roll tight blunts, throw dice, play spades, and chug 40's.
Kick rocks you little punks!
Jarhead
Bayou Jane, I don't know if it is true or not but I had someone tell me an opal is bad luck to wear if it is not your birthstone. It is mine so I didn't give it much thought. Otherwise I do not know much about stones and their meanings. I am glad to hear you weathered the storm at work. I was thinking about you a few minutes to 3pm yesterday. I think we could all use positive energy these days.
As far as the concrete jungle, it's terrible and a waste of money. The people who think these things up should be made to climb on them and see how long it takes before the fall and break something. More people with too much time on their hands spending other peoples money on useless crap.
Jarhead what are you talking about ?! Idk ?!?
All my sons have gone from the monkey bars
to the hockey arena to diving the coral reefs
and now heading to medical school in MA &
undergraduate studies @ UofT whilst doing a
tenure in a research lab. I haven't even seen
my eldest boy this week but once on Monday.
He's writing an application for his little brother
to help him sort through all the med school
ciruculum he's determined to have it all developed
before the fall semester starts. He's planning to
adapt the software for the business world and
put it on the market for sale. No rocks here.- Kiki
Society bitches about kids causing trouble and being lazy, yet they do not put money into REAL solutions for children. Instead of creating stupid expensive statues and ugly art scenery, invest in more playgrounds, nature rails and safe clean parks that all ages can enjoy. Just like the park a few blocks away. It has 2 slides, but no swings, no monkey bars, no tire swing, nothing. No wonder kids are fat and unhealthy. There are no places for them to go and play.
I also would like to add..Where are all the teen youth centers? I remember they were everywhere when I was growing up. Ping pong tables, snacks, pool tables, arcade games etc; all monitored by a Boys and Girls Club Manager or some other organization. Most were safe and it was a place to go.
Hi kiki,
I mean that there are no monkey bars, no slides or any play equipment. Just a slab, like a parking lot. Or a prison yard.
Jarhead
Enrique I see. How sad :( for the kids. Kiki
I grew up on a small farm, and had single-rope, rope swings, a swingset, and an old barn and stables, etc. to play with. We had nice playground equipment to play on as well. I do not begin to understand what those little concrete blocks are about. They are just plain dangerous for kids, and I think someone needs their head examined, and their files audited ASAP.
I don't really understand playground design, though. A park near here got new equipment a few years ago, and they replaced the pretty primary colors with dark green and brown. Now that giant brown tubular slide looks like a giant bowel movement. I wish people would use a little common sense when ordering these things.
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