Councillor Raymond Bremner addresses fears over Caithness play park closures
After recent fears over the future of Caithness play parks, Cllr Raymond Bremner shared positive news on funding streams to purchase new equipment.
Wick and East Caithness councillor Raymond Bremner addressed local concerns over play park closures after a Highland Council document appeared to show a large swathe of them were to be axed.
“That table should never have said that play parks were going to close,” said Cllr Bremner.
“For a start, it wasn’t play parks that were going to close, it was particular pieces of equipment that might fail within that period of time and have to be removed if that repair and maintenance budget wasn’t created.
“That’s not the closure of a play park, that’s just the removal of a piece of equipment. But, if you’ve got three pieces of equipment that fail in five years and there’s only three pieces in the play park then effectively you lose that play park.”
Cllr Bremner said it was “regrettable” that the matter was not made clearer in the Highland Council document and that ward councillors should have contacted the local authority to clarify the issue. “That’s what I did and found about it.”
Cllr Bremner, who is also leader of Highland Council, said that he endorses the creation of a funding stream supporting the “sustainability of equipment in local play parks”. He shared a graph showing the investments made by the Scottish Government into Caithness play parks.
“By the time that the Grizzly Play Park [Wick] is installed early next year, there will be [around] £0.3m invested in Caithness play parks – mainly in the towns.” He said he was delighted that the council’s communities and place committee agreed to the principle that 10 per cent of funds raised by communities be ring-fenced for future maintenance of play parks.
“Without essential maintenance and repair, many items of play park equipment can fail over time resulting in their removal. We have seen this happen all too often over past years due to previous councils cutting revenue funding.”
He added: “There has been a need to restore revenue streams to support future maintenance of our play parks, especially those where there has been increased capital investment over the past three years due to Scottish Government funding.”
Cllr Bremner said he brought a motion to the Caithness Area Committee in August 2021 asking local members to support a new play park strategy. This was accepted and the council agreed to its implementation of a new Play Park Strategy at its meeting in November 2023.
Councillor Bremner said: “The Scottish Government announced £60m funding for investment in play parks in 2021. The Highland Council was to benefit by £2.9m distributed amongst all the council areas, including here in Caithness.
“With a number of community projects going ahead in rural areas, here in Wick and east Caithness it was agreed that the money would be invested in the play parks in Wick as a priority. Much of the equipment in those play parks had failed and previous councils had cut the funding for replacement.
“The Scottish Government funding allowed us to replace many items of equipment. The Nold [Bignold Park] equipment was all replaced with safety matting installed. In March 2022, we agreed the funding for the installation of equipment provided by a community group at Hillhead play park and that was well under way by September of that year.”
Cllr Bremner said that “a much-improved plan for the reinstatement of the Grizzly Play Park” had been agreed and the council hopes to have that installed early next year.
He added: “I’m delighted also that the council is prepared to support community groups’ investment in their local play parks where they are able to attract wind farm funding and other funding.
“Some areas have already been making logical decisions about which play parks to invest in and often this can be equipment that the council could only dream of purchasing and installing. If there are other groups out there that want to talk to the council’s officers about supporting the play parks in their areas, I know they will be happy to have that discussion.”
Highland Council currently maintains 312 play parks and 2039 pieces of play equipment. In a council document released on November 27, Cllr Graham MacKenzie said: “There is no desire to close any of our play parks, and this committee report highlights the need for investment to keep our play parks open and safe for our children now and into the future.”
The council says it will continue to support communities to seek external sources of investment and fundraise to improve play parks.
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