POW! Playing Out in Wakefield Progress Report

Background

Following the ‘Getting Serious About Play’ report, the Big Lottery developed the Children’s Play Initiative and pledged £155 million to support play provision and play opportunity across the country.

Each local authority was allocated an amount of funding and were required to develop a Play Strategy and portfolio of play projects in order to draw down the funding.

The funding available to Wakefield, for our play portfolio, was £772,573.

We asked for expressions of interest to submit a project proposal for the Play Portfolio. 

An independent selection panel then met to decide which projects would be put forward for the Play Portfolio.  Each project was scored against criteria and the 5 that were selected for the portfolio were:

1. Gawthorpe Primary – will open up the school grounds for community use, after school in the evenings, all weekend and holidays - (North Ossett).
2. Old Quarry Adventure Playground - (Delivered by the Committee of the Old Quarry) – is an open access Adventure Playground open after school and holidays providing both indoor and outdoor adventure play activities. (Knottingley).
3. Play Rangers in Pontefract (Delivered by Wakefield District Play Forum) – is a Mobile free play facility in the evenings and school holidays.  It includes Playranger staff and will be delivered in 2 large wards with very little provision (Pontefract North / Pontefract South).
4. Next Generation (Free Fun Fusion) – is an outdoors adventurous environmental playscheme and informal sports activities after school, weekends and holidays.   (playing fields behind lightwaves).
5. YMCA ‘Go Play’ - Mobile youth and free play activities in 5 wards in the evenings and school holidays including rural areas lacking in play facilities. (Airedale / Ferry Fryston, South Kirkby / South Elmsall, Normanton, Wakefield West, Wakefield Rural).

The projects between them cover ten wards within the Wakefield District that have been highlighted as lacking in play provision in the Play Strategy.

Each project contributes to the overall vision of the Play Strategy and the Big Lottery programme outcomes which are to:

1. Improve access to outdoor play spaces
2. Raise the profile of inclusive free play across the district
3. Develop free play opportunities for older children and young people
4. Extend opportunities for free play in schools
5. Expand free play opportunities in staffed/supervised settings

The projects will benefit 2,235 children and young people over the three-year period including children and young people from Black Minority and Ethnic groups, disadvantaged communities and disabled children.

Playing Out in Wakefield Portfolio

The portfolio was named POW - Playing Out in Wakefield and was submitted to the Big Lottery along with the Play Strategy.

In December 2007, the Portfolio along with the Wakefield Play Strategy were approved by the Big Lottery.

We were then awarded the Big Lottery funding of £772,573 to deliver these 5 projects in the portfolio over 3 years.

The Big Lottery assessment team stated that our submission was the best that they had assessed in the Yorkshire & Humber region!

Our POW! Portfolio officially commenced on 21st May 2008 and will run for three years ending on 20th May 2011.

We have recruited a Portfolio Management Co-ordinator who will day-to-day manage and co-ordinate the Play Portfolio and the collation of quarterly monitoring and evaluation data from the projects.

For further information, contact Donna Maw on 01924 305506.