But playground to reopen this weekend
A CHILDREN’S playground, which had to close because people using the facility and the surrounding woodlands were parking dangerously, has reopened and will be available for the bank holiday weekend. The Cratloe community playground, nestling in the heart of the woodlands, was built at a cost of €180,000. But when parking became a cause of danger, local people started to call for it to be closed altogether.
“We had no choice but to close temporarily and to try to get the message across that parking along the road at the woods is terribly dangerous,” said Mary Foley, chairwoman of the playground committee. “It wasn’t just the families using the playground, you have joggers and walkers in the woods as well and people were just leaving their cars. We had to close for seven weeks at weekends on health and safety grounds because small children had to walk out on the road with cars flying by just inches from them.
“And if there was an emergency in one of the houses across the road an ambulance would have terrible trouble,” said Mary.
During the weeks that the playground was closed, members of the playground committee handed out leaflets, outlining the reasons for the closure and the dangers being caused by careless parking.
Committee members had to take turns patrolling the playground which is difficult to secure, as there are a number of entrances.
Now the playground has just reopened and the committee is hoping that the parking problem will not re-emerge.
“It has been quiet so far but that may be because people think we’re still closed at weekends. But if it does get busy, we can’t stress enough that people should use the car-park in the woods. It would be a terrible pity of this facility had to close again,” Mary told the Limerick Post.
