Stratford St Mary has celebrated the launch of its new £23,000 playground - giving the headteacher of the village’s primary school the first go on its zip wire.
The playground was designed with help from the village’s primary school pupils who had a hand in final say on the plans.
The entire school including headteacher Karen Bilner attended the grand opening of the playground, at the playing field in Higham Road, last week.
The project, which has been in the pipeline for 18 months, was paid for with generous donations from the Tesco Bags of Help appeal, Stratford Parish Council and Babergh District Council.
Playground committee member Laura Carney said the new equipment had been a huge boost for the village
She said: “We had the whole school come down for the launch, every year group, the teachers and even the headteacher.
“Mrs Bilner actually opened the playground by zipping down the zip wire.
“The playground before was 20 years old and falling apart.
“It was a horrible old metal playground and wasn’t well used really.
“We received £12,000 of the total from Tesco’s Bags of Help competition where we were up against three different outdoor developments in East Anglia.
“Then the parish council gave us around £6,000 and another £5,000 or so came from Babergh District Council.”
During the design stage, an online survey was set up to gather ideas from young people in the village on what should be included in the playground.
The new equipment includes monkey bars, swings and a slide but it was the zip wire that topped the list of suggestions.
Mrs Carney said: “Then we came up with two designs and got the school council, which represents every year at the primary school, to pick a winner.
“On Monday we had our first proper sunny day so I went down there with my kids and there were around 15 children already there having a go.
“I also went a few days before with my youngest daughter, who is seven, but she had to queue for the zip wire with other kids because there were lots of older ladies on it.”
Mrs Carney thanked Shaun Baker and Laurie Ellingham as the driving force behind the community project.
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