Warren Walker, Owen Jackson, Chris Fauth, John Rushton and Roselyn Fauth meet with designers over zoom to present his design brief to The Playground Centre. 

Owen Jackson - CPlay Committee Chair

Over a 4 month period in 2019 CPlay accepted proposals from the leading playground designers and equipment manufacturers in NZ. Unfortunately there was not a company locally
that could build a playground to the current health and safety specifications required.
We had done some research on what the costings were for similar sorts of playgrounds around NZ so we kept the brief simple. “We want a ‘heritage’ theme and how much will we get for an
investment of around $1 - $1.5 million”
CPlay went through a thorough process led by committee members, John Rushton (Rushton Architects Timaru) and Chris Fauth and eventually we settled on the proposal submitted by The
Playground Centre. A deposit of $60,000 was secured through the Timaru District Council ‘Stimulus Fund’ and the terms of engagement were signed in October 2020 enabling CPlay to commit to the “FunMaker Process”.

The first part of this process was for John Rushton to present his design brief to The Playground Centre team by way of a ZOOM meeting on Wednesday December 2nd. 

The design brief was born out of the extensive community consultation and contained;

• Key Concept - to tell the story of the land and its people.
• Key Spaces - from junior to older and outlining the support spaces such as parking, toilets, fencing, drinking fountains and shade.
• Key Elements - Inclusive play elements (such as the feature pieces, the ‘Shipwreck’ and ‘Lighthouse’ and creating a “place for everyone”
• The Playground Centre design team have been busy working from this design brief and will have the first iteration of the plans ready for February 26th. This will be followed by a “playground fly-through” which will be revealed to the public on March 8th at an official launch.