Seriously, how long does it take to do up a play park?

[Thurlow]

First world problems and all that, I know

The council very excitedly announced a while ago they were doing up some of the kids play parks around the town. Lovely stuff - they were good parks but a bit old. They started on the one nearest to us a while ago. I walk past it every day and have been watching with interest, mainly as I have a 2yo who is starting to miss the tractor climbing frame immensely.

It's not a big park. They have replaced four swings, taken away a slide and put in a new one, moved some existing fencing and those little spinny bowl thingies to another place, and put in half of one of those big swings, the flat ones you can pile half a dozen toddlers onto. They've left up two of the climbing frames (including the tractor, thank god) and given them a lick of paint.

So far, this has taken 5 weeks. At the rate changes seem to be happening, it seems one man turns up, sticks something in the ground, and then wanders off until the next day.

I'm sure it will be lovely when it's open and I'm happy the council are spending money on it and all that malarkey but... 5 weeks? 5 weeks? People on Grand Designs have built whole houses in 5 weeks...

It'll be low priority. They'll send people as they have them spare.

I was expecting you to say that it had been in progress for 6 months or something!

Our local play area is being renovated. They did part of it before the summer holidays then opened it for the holidays. Then in September they started the other (bigger) section. I assume it was meant to be ready for half term. It's not open yet but does look as though it's approaching the end. So I'd say it's a typical timescale. To be honest I wouldn't expect them to be working day and night on a play area.

Oh, I don't expect it to be a priority or anything. It just intrigued me as there's really not much work to be done. 4 men, two days, they could have it all done!

There's a building site near me that I walk past most week days. For weeks I couldn't tell that they'd done any work whatsoever. They've now put boards up so that you can't see what they're doing, but I suspect it's not much. This has been going on since at least June.

We waited nearly 2 years for the new play park our new build estate to be built and signed off, it was complete over a year and half ago, but no one could play on it until it was approved...

No, offally! That's awful. Poor kids, staring at a playpark they can't use...

Our local park was redeveloped recently and it took 3.5 months; it was quite a big job though. It opened just before the end of the school holidays.

Concrete and other adhesives take time to set, and you can't do either in wet weather.

There are sometimes delays while people get the right equipment as well. If a digger is needed and they only have one, and that's at another job, then your job will just have to wait.

On the other hand, councils aren't under all that much pressure to do these things quickly or efficiently.

Our local play park took 7 months to be refurbished even with a jubilee playing fields grant funding it.