Farcliffe and Lilycroft Children and Family Centre

The client had a good size garden with beautiful mature trees but there were several problems including fly tipping, drug usage and other antisocial behaviour which disturbed the running of the children and family centre. The garden did not have any play provision and was overgrown with stinging nettles and shrubs which did not encourage people to want to use the garden positively. The centre wanted to create some play areas for children of different ages and make an attractive recreation space for families, and hoped to discourage the antisocial uses by increasing the use of the garden by the public. CUD produced a master plan for whole site to ensure that all these needs were met and to allow for decisions to be made on the phasing of the improvement works. A total of three phases have so far been designed in detail and implemented under the supervision of CUD using a combination of landscape contractors and BCEP trainees. Today, a footpath runs through the garden from a newly created pedestrian entrance. There are benches in both the shade and the sun, a timber trim trail, and natural features for play including a felled tree, large boulders and habitat piles. A timber fence has been erected to make safe a drop above a retaining wall on one boundary and planting has been carried out to separate the busy road below the wall from the garden and to bring more colour and fragrance to the garden. Trees have been planted as replacements for the existing mature trees when they become old. The boundaries of the existing separate play areas for the nursery children were modified to allow more efficient use of the space. Within the larger play area, for the three to five year old children, a network of paths for pedal cycles and prams has been developed linking a sand pit, basins for water play, logs and boulders, a multi-play unit, an embankment slide and planters for growing vegetable, herbs and flowers. Designs and cost estimates have been prepared for the smaller play areas for the under threes, which will hopefully be developed in the near future.