19th April 2012 - the contractors, Playground Services, arrived and started work! Despite the rain, the site is taking shape and is on track for the 2nd June opening.

March/April 2012 Update

The site has been prepared, hedges planted and laid and trees have been planted.

We have negotiated and signed the lease for the land.

We have been granted full planning permission (April 2011).

We (the village) raised £1,800 at Appleton Olympics (Sept 2010).

We have been awarded a grant of £50,000 from WREN.

We have been awarded a grant of £47,000 from Playbuilder.

We received £389 from the green token box at Waitrose.

We have been awarded a grant of £5,000 from Sovereign Vale Housing Association and £1,000 from Appleton Village Shop.

One of our young member's, James Knight, and his family organised and ran a fantastic table top sale which was a great success and raised a brilliant £250! Thank you James!

We have employed a landscape architect - you can view the initial design which has since been improved after your feedback.

We showed the initial design to the village at our consultation day in January this year and got lots of feedback and ideas.

We got a great ammount of positive input from the whole community at our Ideas Day in March 2010 - hopefully everyone had fun too! More details...!

We have run a design competition and 'Young Persons Focus Group' to get as many ideas and input as possible from the young people in our parish.

We have also had meetings with two possible design companies and discussed possible design ideas - the input we got from the young people was key to this.

In December 2009 the Parish Council voted to support our cause and in February 2010 we became a sub-committee of the Parish Council.

We have analysed the results of our Young Persons Questionnaire which went out with the Community Plan Questionnaire - Thank you so much to the 128 young people who took the time to fill it in! To see the presentation of the results click here.

We have talked to many parents, grandparents and children to gauge support - thank you for all your positive responses and ideas!

We have researched how many other Oxfordshire villages of similar size to Appleton have had success with this and how they now manage/maintain their playgrounds

We have consulted RoSPA and are in regular contact with them re all the safety aspects of having a playground.

We have recruited two local builders to help us keep track of any necessary maintenance.

Please get in touch if you have any questions or would like to help in any way!

appletonplayground@googlemail.com