Winning design for new flagship play area at Prospect Park

We are excited to announce the winning design for our new half-a-million pound playground in Prospect Park.

Following community consultation, and feedback from the Council’s Access Disability Group, the design from HAGS has been selected as the winner with nearly 55% of the overall vote.

The winning design will create an exciting play area that will allow children to be challenged physically, as well as letting their creativity flourish. The design provides a range of facilities to cater for children of all ages and abilities by offering a variety of challenge levels. The location and surfaces of the new play area have been chosen to ensure the best accessibility for families using pushchairs or mobility aids. 

The new playground at Prospect Park forms part of the Council’s overall £1 million investment in new playgrounds and playground equipment across Reading for children and families to enjoy.

The new play area will include

• Themed zones, including quiet play areas and activity panels.
• Roundabouts, swings and a zip wire.
• Two large climbing towers with a tunnel slide and access ramp incorporated into the unit.
• Ground-level roundabout, braille panels, lower-level inclusive play net, accessible see-saw, tactile panels, ground-level games, and a large accessible springer.

The new play area will be designed to allow much better access to and around the play area and will be as inclusive as possible – aiming to challenge, excite and inspire as well as encourage children of all abilities to play together.

As part of the work there are plans to create a pedestrian access path from the car park to the play area, with a new pedestrian crossing.

Work on the new play area will start in the autumn this year and the play area will be open for the summer holidays in 2023.

Once the new play area is open the second phase will be to remove the existing play area and reinstate the area back to informal grass parkland.

This project is just one aspect of the enhancement and investment being made within Prospect Park, including a £500k multi-use activity centre in part of the pavilion building. The mini-golf at the centre opened in June, with the other facilities – including indoor Sky Tykes low ropes for young children and a café - opening later this summer: Active Reading information.