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HomeNewsNanaimo’s Maffeo Sutton park to receive playground expansion

Nanaimo’s Maffeo Sutton park to receive playground expansion

The playground at Maffeo Sutton Park will be getting a bit of work done on it to make it bigger.

New rubber surfaces are plotted for the playground, to allow more accessibility for children and adults who’d have difficulty traversing woodchips or gravel.

The rubber comes from tires recovered by Tire Stewardship BC.

it’s coming from all over the province, every retailer in the province of British Columbia,” said Rosemary Sutton, Executive Director of Tire Stewardship BC. “Auto wrecking yards, transfer stations, anybody that is generating a scrap tire; we will come pick it up.

Five and a half million tires a year are collected by Tire Stewardship BC, and 1709 of them will be used in Maffeo Sutton’s expansion.

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The new rubber surfacing is plotted to be complete by July, though that is still up in the air. Work has been going on since June.

“As we found out with a lot of projects, that was the plan,” Sutton laughed, “not the reality. Certainly that is something unless they have experienced outside significant delays, it’s going to be in and around July. Whenever they intend to have it complete.”

Sign next to the current playground. Photo provided by Ridley Wilson, Vista Radio staff.

While the city works on the design of the playground, Sutton says the current work is promising.

“Phase one the playground there is fantastic,” said Sutton. “They’ve done just an amazing job of not just incorporating rubber in the surface, but creating an incredible design. They’ve got 3D fish on there, pictures of bears and trees, they’ve captured a very artsy environmental sort of Vancouver Island theme and I know that they’re doing that again in this particular one. I know that they’ve involved a lot of the community when it comes to the design, and they’re trying to make sure that this playground is accessible.”

The Nanaimo Child Development Center said phase one provided a place accessible to both children and adults with disabilities, allowing parents to engage with their children rather than just ‘watch from the swings.’

Ladysmith also got attention, as a new rubber surface has been in the works for the Ladysmith Spray Park since May. However, the new surface has yet to be installed for children to see the new, brighter colors planned.

More information about the recycled tires is available here.

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