City-change means rethink of city parks

BY MICK ROBERTS

WITH more and more young families choosing to live in the inner-city, a rethink of the way we use passive recreation areas is underway.
City of Sydney Council will move forward with plans for an adventure playground, bike track, skateboard area, and nature play elements for a tired park in Surry Hills.
After input from local residents at a community forum late in 2007, Council have decided to create the adventure playground with a space net, rope bridge and flying fox to cater for children in Ward Park.
Sydney Lord Mayor, Clover Moore said the concept designs focus on providing a state of the art playground for kids aged 4 to 12 helping to develop cognitive, physical and social skills.
‘In the inner-city, with so many young families, providing great play areas like this is vital,’ Cr Moore said.
Access to the play area is also to be improved with soft fall areas upgraded and new trees planted to increase shade. There will also be a new bubbler and a place for children and carers to park their bicycles.
As Chair of the Surry Hills Neighbourhood Centre, Linda Scott said that Ward Park’s transformation is good news for local residents.
‘A lot of my friends with young children are choosing to stay in the city to live instead of moving out into the suburbs and that makes it more important that these spaces remain,’ Ms Scott said.
The Neighbourhood Centre has had a long association with the local community, particularly the high-rise Northcott flats that casts its shadow over Ward Park.
‘The importance of this park to the tenants of Northcott is really understated,’ she said.
‘This is one of the highest concentrations of residential areas in the inner-city and Ward Park is one of the largest parks. A good mix of facilities for everyone who uses the park will be a great benefit to the community,’ she said.
The Surry Hills Neighbourhood Centre provides a range of social skills groups and programs for the residents of the Department of Housing’s Northcott apartments.
‘We will be undertaking some mental health programs for residents of Northcott, and as always, open spaces are important to those programs,’ she said.
‘A lot of community groups use the park, and as long as the open space is maintained and as long as it stays accessible to everyone ‘ that’s fantastic.’
Ms Scott said she did have some concerns over Council’s practice of renaming parks.
The park was named after a former City councillor and Federal Minister of Parliament Eddie Ward.
Ms Scott said he was a colourful character who lived in the city and said the park should remain a memory to the larger than life inner-city character.
‘He was such a prominent and contentious citizen of Sydney.
‘A lot of park names have changed over the years, and I would be for keeping this name because we are losing so much of the city’s history,’ she said.
It is estimated that construction of Ward Park’s improvements will commence in late 2008 and be completed in mid 2009.
Meanwhile three upgraded ‘pocket’ parks were officially opened in Darlington on March 1.
Eveleigh Street’s Pemulwuy Park, Hugo Street Reserve and Yellowmundee Reserve were opened with a ‘welcome to country’, music, treats for children and Indigenous tucker.
The upgrade of Hugo Street Reserve includes a magnificent Indigenous art work, the colourful ‘Wall of Humanity’, featuring a human figure repeated many times, symbolising humanity and the presence of ancestors, which was designed by the renowned artist Bronwyn Bancroft and artist and architect, Dale Jones-Evans.
Local children from the City’s Redfern Community Centre Youth Program helped to paint the mural.
The parks form a part of the City of Sydney’s $50 million infrastructure investment in Redfern which includes the Redfern and Regent Street upgrades, plus the revitalisation of both Prince Alfred Park and Redfern Park.