CHILDREN were today celebrating the opening of a new £76,000 play area in a village near York.

A range of play equipment for youngsters aged from three to 15 – including climbing blocks for teenagers, a large swing that sits about five children, and a slide – has been unveiled behind Naburn Village Hall.

Naburn Parish Council clerk Jenny Balding said: “It (the play area) really is being used and the children are so delighted.

“They’re using it in all weathers and that’s what we wanted to achieve.”

The new facility is the culmination of about 18 months’ hard work for the parish council, which secured £75,500 in grants to pay for the £76,223 playground. The council was encouraged in its quest to replace the old play equipment after husband and wife Martin and Tracy Land, who live in the village, gave a donation of £10,000 in memory of Mrs Land’s father, Bob Hanson.

Mrs Balding, who raised cash for the project, said: “It’s what really spurred us on to seek grants from elsewhere. For someone to give that amount of money, we wanted it to be special. It was hard work, but we got there in the end.”

The Department of Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) donated £47,000 in the form of a Playbuilder grant, and Yorventure, which provides landfill tax funding for local projects, gave £18,000.

York Children’s Trust contributed £500, with the parish council paying the rest of the costs. Mrs Balding described the former play facility as “dreadful”.

“There were a couple of swings, a slide and a dilapidated roundabout we had to have taken out about six years ago,” she said. The site is the second of 22 playgrounds in York that will benefit from the £1.1 million Playbuilder funding allocated to City of York Council by the DCSF.

The scheme is aimed at creating and redeveloping playgrounds to ensure they provide stimulating and challenging play experiences for children aged from eight to 13.

Mrs Balding thanked Naburn parish councillor Kitty Lamb and David Meigh, the city council’s head of parks and open spaces, for their contributions.