The new Imperial Park and upgrade to Home Park play area

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thamesweb	The new Imperial Park and upgrade to Home Park play area	Lead	[-]
Posts: 1160 (20-May-2008 09:00 AM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Original Press Release about the creation of the Imperial Park 19/05/2008 There will be fun and games for everyone when Imperial Park - Windsor's biggest new park for 60 years - officially opens on Sunday May 25. All the family is invited to come along to the free event between 11am and 2pm to try their hand at human table football, inflatable jousting and bungee run, penalty shoot-out and basketball shots competitions. Juniors can burn up their energy in the well-equipped play area and on the bouncy castle or try on a jumbo sumo suit for size. Cllr Jesse Grey, lead member for leisure and culture - who will carry out the ceremonial ribbon cutting at 11am - said: "Windsor has been traditionally short of parks so the opening of such a well-designed and equipped space is an exciting and significant event. The park has been nine months in the construction and the result is an excellent facility for all the community." Residents were consulted on the facilities they wanted before work began and pupils at Clewer Green CE and Oakfield First Schools chose the design for the new play area. Cllr Eileen Quick, lead member for Windsor and ward councillor for Clewer East, said: "Local residents have been making good use of the park already, as the facilities have been completed, as well as enjoying the open space. Imperial Park is an excellent, convenient venue of which local residents can be justifiably proud." Situated off Imperial Road, the park includes a children's play area, multi-use games areas, small pavilion and car park. Windsor's last major new park was Dedworth Manor in Hanover Way in 1947. Other public open spaces have been created over the years, the latest being Clewer Manor in 2004, but these are smaller areas with a limited range of facilities. Refreshments will be available at the opening event. Entry is free. Last Edited By: thamesweb 27-Jun-2008 09:48 AM. Edited 3 times.
Pat Larkin	New Park opening.	#1	[-]
Posts: 165 (23-May-2008 09:10 AM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Will you be there and will you take any pics? Last Edited By: Pat Larkin 23-May-2008 02:05 PM. Edited 1 times.
thamesweb	Imperial Park Pictures	#2	[-]
Posts: 1182 (23-May-2008 03:58 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	The view towards the south east corner, by the entrance, and the ball game area The view towards the south and the housing development on the former Haileybury School site The play area with climbing frames and swings The view west with the former Convent chapel beyond the trees The view towards the north west, Birchington Road and Cedar Court flats The car park spaces have been covered with this plastic grid and chippings which I assume is to assist drainage. Imperial Park is large. Of that there is no doubt. It was formerly part of Clewer Manor and more recently was used as Trevelyan School's playing fields until their move to the former Princess Margaret Rose school buildings off Bourne Avenue. Magically the threat of development, ever present, has been avoided and the installation of play areas and parking, plus a vast area of grass, is great to see. Windsor has been traditionally short of parks... I find this quote by Cllr Jesse Grey, (Consesrvative) lead member for leisure and culture, quite amusing as it was the Conservative council in 1989 that attempted to sell off the nearby Vansittart Road Recreation Ground for the development of around 150 flats!!! At that time it was reported that Windsor enjoyed very much less Public open Space than Maidenhead, and although the advent of Imperial Park goes someway towards rectifying this situation some twenty years later, the fact remains that overall in this country Public Open Spaces continue to be sold off for development. See Open Spaces Society News
thamesweb		#3	[-]
Posts: 1183 (23-May-2008 04:09 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Regarding the attention to drainage on the car park area, I suspect that this is all to do with the increasing problem of rainwater run-off. With the deluges that we have experienced in recent times, attention is increasingly being paid to the effect created by gardens being turned into hard standing in the front of thousands of homes around the country. This is happening as off-street parking becomes more and more essential. Many believe that rainwater which previously would soak into the ground, is now being channelled into street gullies which just cannot cope. The result is localised flooding, often entering homes. I have heard that steps are being taken in certain parts of the country to outlaw concrete being poured over gardens, and that planning permission is now required which will only be granted if a permeable layer is used.
Pat Larkin	Imperial Park	#4	[-]
Posts: 169 (24-May-2008 08:11 AM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	This looks good and as you said, it's a huge area too. Well worth waiting for and it will, hopefully, give the children of this, and future generations, hours of fun with plenty of space to run around, shout, climb and generally burn off their endless energy. They will love it. I think too, there will be many onlookers at the opening ceremony, some of a slightly older generation maybe, who will be envious of the children. I know I'd walk, roller-blade or cycle to the park if I were young and lived in the town. Vale Road rec. was our nearest play area years ago. But, it was always full of children and we all loved it. There were 'big' swings, 'baby' swings, slide, big, cone-shaped roundabout, and the most daring of them all was a mini-spider-shaped roundabout.....I won't go into detail but, I 'went on it' only once !! A big 'thankyou' to Windsor Council, (or is it Windsor/Maidenhead Council?). Thanks for the photos too thamesweb.
thamesweb	Home Park Play Area to be upgraded	#5	[-]
Posts: 1248 (27-Jun-2008 09:58 AM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	RBWM announces plans to upgrade the Home Park play area with work starting on June 30 2008 and providing more play equipment for younger children to widen the age range and supplement the existing facilities. The Borough are also improving play areas in Maidenhead. Cllr Jesse Grey, lead member for leisure and culture, said: "This is a very exciting programme of work which will provide some wonderful new and additional facilities in parks across the borough. "We looked very carefully at areas where there is either currently no play provision at all or where the existing facilities had literally reached the end of its useful life - and these are the areas we are focussing our attention on. "This programme will provide some exciting new equipment which children will want to use - will also encourage families to enjoy some of the beautiful open spaces we have in our borough as well as the health benefits of outdoor exercise." The play areas in the £250,000 programme are funded by Section 106 developer contributions. This plan stems from those developments in the Borough where open space cannot be included as part of a development area and so the developer makes a payment to RBWM for improvements to be made to play areas elsewhere in the borough. The only problem with this plan is that Windsor is already deficient in Public Open Space and has been for many years, according to the recommended ratios between the number of properties and the population in a given area compared to recreational open space, parks and gardens. With the significant additional developments within Windsor, especially around the area of Clarence Road, this ratio remains below par.
Pat Larkin	'Former Convent Chapel' photograph - Imperial Park.	#6	[-]
Posts: 216 ( 4-Jul-2008 04:21 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Can I ask thamesweb if the 'former Convent chapel' mentioned in the background of the photo of 'the view west'...was the same chapel where we Clewer Green pupils would 'march' to for Ascension Day services? We marched in two's down Hatch Lane, turning into the drive of the Chapel, (which was on the left-hand-side before Hatch Lane crossed over Dedworth Road). This was a huge chapel and I think most of us liked to go to the service there as it was the biggest church, or, for that matter, the biggest building any of us had ever been in. That's going back to the 1940's. I remember the 'tinkling bells' being rung, and I'm sure we had incense 'swung' by an aide to the priest. I haven't a clue what it all meant, but loved to sing hymns there. I had assumed that the Chapel, along with most other older buildings in that area, had been demolished years ago. So, fingers crossed that it's still there.
thamesweb		#7	[-]
Posts: 1265 ( 4-Jul-2008 04:28 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	The Chapel photographed a few years ago before the Convent became apartments Can't answer that I am afraid but coincidentally the chapel in the picture is the subject of a planning application to open up the building for public use. It is currently unused. I will see if I can find out more. See the new thread here Planning Application for the Convent Chapel Last Edited By: thamesweb 4-Jul-2008 04:55 PM. Edited 2 times.