Barnet Council has officially opened a £200,000 play area in Totteridge’s Brook Farm Open Space, and a £75,000 state-of-the-art outdoor gym in Victoria Recreation Ground in New Barnet.
The new playground at Totteridge’s Brook Farm Open Space
Opened last week the new facilities are part of a multi-million-pound investment in the borough’s parks to help residents get out into the open air, enjoy the green spaces and keep themselves fit.
The new playpark includes a mini castle, swings, slides, a seesaw, climbing frame and even an alligator to be traversed, while the gym includes apparatus such as a cross-trainer, weights equipment, kettle bells and bars for triceps dips and chin-ups.
Cllr Alan Schneiderman, Chair of the Environment and Climate Change Committee, said: “Parks are important places for our health and wellbeing – both physical and mental.
“They are places where we can exercise and relax and they also offer us places to go where we can enjoy clean air and biodiversity, attracting all sorts of wildlife to our borough.
“We’re proud to invest in our lovely parks, and we hope you can find time to enjoy them this Love Parks Week and beyond.”
As well as investing in these new parks the council has also installed Swing Fitness boxes – which include a variety of weights and double up as exercise benches – in Finchley’s Victoria Park, Hendon Park and Montrose Playing Fields in Colindale.
A memorial bench has also been installed by the council at the centre of the new Barnet Memorial Woodland, where 500 trees were planted by residents to remember lost loved ones.
For more information about Barnet’s parks, visit: www.barnet.gov.uk/directories/parks