Down to Earth People:Playing their Part (1)

Featured Image: In the recent upgrade and play surface refurbishment at Greythorn Park you can see how play equipment manufacturer Proludic, their groundwork and surface contractors ALS Contracting and Playsmart bring a professional good humour to meticulous work.

Above: John-Aris Hirst Playground Inspector with images that might give you an idea of the skill, energy, professionalism that goes into a local park refurbishment, today in 2024.

The park has just been refurbished: and what a brilliant job Proludic, (with ALS (groundworks who don’t use all that newfangled promotional tech) and Playsmart) commissioned by the very hard working teams at the council have done with parks across the borough:

(Greythorn’s not on this Rushcliffe park list yet):

Proludic manufacture in Ruddington have been established over twenty years and work across the world.

Above: some of the countries and networks established by Proludic’s teams across the world.
This park has been beautifully upgraded over the last month and every night after the teams have left children, parents (and their dogs) have kept track of how the work was going. Yesterday (3rd July 2024) the park was theirs again so well used, appreciated and, well, really loved!

As someone who knows the history of the park it’s so interesting to look at the similarities between being a child living on Uppingham Crescent which was a new estate built on farmland finished in 1958 and now, living across from that same park, seeing how the new estate built across from it nestles so well into the old estates and communities because of the park.

Greythorn Park and sports field connects people from the old estates, the newer estates and the newest.

Above: the new small estate of Summer (and Autumn) Drives (and more(!)) beautifully belongs at the bottom of Greythorn Drive with Walcote Drive and Compton Acres, this little estate connects generations. It’s great to see over the last few years how much the park brings so much play, laughter and hilarity.

Summer Drive Estate has been built on the site of a post second world war secondary/technical school, the Lutterell school which became in 1970 West Bridgford College of Further and Adult Education and then, South Nottingham College. In 2012 South Nottingham College merged with Castle (formerly The People’s College), becoming Central College Nottingham on 1st July 2011. The West Bridgford site closed in 2015 and was demolished to build the new pocket sized estate in 2016.

The story of the original park is interesting too: between 1945 and the late 1950’s new housing was built on farmland Uppingham Crescent, Stowe Avenue and Greythorn Drive, much in the same way that new housing has been built recently on the site of the former college.

Children played on the street and across the farmland and there was also a sense that everyone wanted somewhere children could call their own: a park. Jean Stansfield who lived on Uppingham Crescent who worked for the National Association of Local Government Organisers (now Unison) encouraged people to think they could have a park.

Jean who lived on Uppingham Crescent had the idea of organising a petition for a park to West Bridgford Urban District Council. What was great about her energy was that she recruited everyone, young, teenagers, adults, older people to get signatures from the bottom of Greythorn to the top of Wilford Hill.

The council thought it was a pretty good petition and the park was planned and built quickly: it had….. swings, slide, roundabout, climbing frame, seesaw, log and

…. a witches hat)

Jean’s now 96 – and deserves a big thank you!).