Cornwall Park New Build Turf Turning Ceremony

On Wednesday 13th November current Cornwall Park and Haumoana Playcentre members, former members, mana whenua, community members, Ministry of Education staff and Playcentre Aotearoa staff attended at the site of the new build for Cornwall Park Playcentre at St Leonards Park in Hastings for the turf turning ceremony to kick off the project.

It was a beautiful day with an awesome turn out. The tamariki running around the area that will be their new Playcentre in 12 months for the first time and then exploring the awesome playground the Hastings District Council have built next door. After the ceremony we had kai at a cafe across the road.

“It was such a special morning and an honour to be a part of it,” said Playcentre Aotearoa Chief Executive David Moger.

After several years without their own Playcentre building, Cornwall Park Playcentre whānau and tamariki had been travelling to attend Haumoana Playcentre and Havelock North Playcentre. Unfortunately, in 2023, Haumoana Playcentre was flooded during Cyclone Gabrielle.

“It is so exciting to get this project kicked off, so our Cornwall Park Playcentre whānau can have a dedicated space for the early childhood education of their tamariki,” said Moger.

Mā whero, mā pango ka oti ai te mahi – With red and black the work will be complete.

Te Kawau Playcentre – New Playground

Te Kawau Playcentre has recently had a fantastic transformation of their playground!

In 2023 unfortunately the fort had some rotting posts, a wobbly bridge and several non-compliant components. The soft fall was too low and there were trip hazards where the grass lawn met the edge of the retained soft fall.

This has been transformed so that the grass lawn has been shaped up to meet a flat timber barrier that separates the lawn from the newly retained soft fall, providing easy access for small feet.

Newly purchased Tredsafe equipment can now be safely used on the new soft fall and the existing swings now have suitable soft fall throughout their entire fall zone.

Many thanks to centre members who have worked hard to make this happen, in particular Richard Maurice.

Thanks also to the contractor, Nick Walkley from Village Earthworks, who made the vision a reality and worked cooperatively with Centre members and PA Property staff.

 

 

 

Playcentre Whanau and Rat Bat Stations

As part of our ongoing commitment to safety, we want to remind everyone about the proper storage of rat bait stations.

To ensure the safety of children and pets, it’s crucial that these stations are kept in areas that are completely inaccessible to them.

Key Points:

  • Child-Safe Locations
    • Rat bait stations should be stored in child inaccessible locations, locked, or secured places
    • Avoid placing them in areas frequently accessed by children (even if access is to be supervised by adults), such as toy sheds or garages.
  • Regular Checks
    • Inspect your bait stations regularly to ensure they remain secure and are not accessible
    • Replace bait as necessary (normally done by contractor), following safety guidelines.
  • Education
    • Talk to your children about the importance of not touching or playing near bait stations
    • Encourage awareness of wildlife safety and the role of pest management.
  • Reporting Issues
    • If you notice any bait stations that appear to be accessible to children or pets, please report it immediately.

By following these guidelines, we can help maintain a safe environment for everyone in our community. Thank you for your cooperation!

Wobbly Bridges

In 2021 Playcentre Aotearoa identified wobbly/clatter bridges as being a health and safety risk for children under 36 months old. Since then we have been working on a project to eliminate that risk. In June/July/August/September the Property Team removed the majority of the bridges that were identified and boarded them up. Since then we have been working on a way to replace the bridges. This has involved creating our own fixed bridges design and had it engineered. Two designs were created a humpy bridge and a flat bridge. Centre’s have been consulted on whether they would like a one of these options (unfortunately the humpy was not suitable for all Centres) or just a fixed balustrade.

The first three bridges were installed in the last two weeks (these were trial bridges):

Lumsden Playcentre was a single humpy bridge installed by our South Island/Lower North Island Contractor

Horotiu was two bridges side by side (only one in the country), one humpy and one flat installed by our Upper North Island Contractor

“The Centre are happy with it.  It is nice and colourful and the children are enjoying the refreshed space.”

Playcentre Aotearoa Commissioned Assessments and Reports

Thank you all who have contacted us about sending out Playsafe and WSP reports. Playcentre Aotearoa has commissioned these reports to allow us to understand the conditions and risks within each Playcentre. As such, these reports are for us to pre-plan works that are required over the next ten years at every Playcentre and building we operate out of. This enables us to align our resourcing and budgeting.

Currently, we do not have the resourcing or budget to undertake the majority of the non-urgent, non-high risk works that are within these reports. Therefore, we only send through to each Centre information regarding works or advice that they can complete themselves at a Centre level, things like – positioning of swings on a swing frame, relocating a compost bin away from an external fence.

We also send a hazard register with the items that the Centre Members need to be aware of which are low or medium risk that we will get to fixing but need to be managed by Centre’s until such as time as that can happen.

We appreciate that it looks like we aren’t being transparent about what is in the reports by not sending them to a Centre, but this is totally not the intention. The intention is to reduce the load from Property Team Resourcing and Funding. At this point in our journey we really need to concentrate our efforts on urgent and high risk works across the motu so that our tamariki and whanau are safe and healthy.

Please note that the WSP Condition Reports and HAZMAT reports will be posted out for Centre’s to put into their HMMP (Hazardous Materials Management Process) Folders. This does not mean that we will accept projects in relation to any works that we haven’t already identified as urgent or high-risk. All works within these reports are contained within our asset management database to be remediated or repaired within a prescribed timeframe. That timeframe will depend on annual budgets and resources.

Thank you for your previous feedback in this space and your continued understanding.

 

Hazardous Materials Management Plan (HMMP) 

You should have a folder at your Centre, if you don’t, please contact [email protected]. Please make every effort to find these folders. The front of the folder, when posted to the centre / CA would have had the image shown beside this text.

A tip is to photocopy the Hazards Register that is in the HAZMAT report – called Asbestos and Lead Management Survey / Asbestos Management Survey / Lead Management Survey or Mould Management Survey (if you had one. Not all Centres did) and put it on the wall alongside your main Hazards Register.  

 

 

 

 

External Contractors Centre Visits

It has been brought to our attention that not all Centre’s have received the messages about external inspectors/assessors being at their Centre. Currently we have three groups of external assessments happening. WSP are undertaking Condition Assessment on Centres that were previously surveyed in Tranche 1 in 2021 and also HAZMAT assessments on all buildings aged between 1950 and 1970 (the most likely age for asbestos to exist in a building). These are two separate assessments with two different teams. These inspections should be notified to your Centre by the Regional Team. Please note not every Centre will get one or even both of these inspections as many were picked up in Tranche 2.

Also, we have Playsafe visiting every Centre on a two-year cycle to undertake a Level 3 Playground Inspection. These inspections are not notified in advance, on request from Playsafe, and Playsafe may jump the fence if they are unable to access any other way. The two inspectors are very approachable in asking who they are and why they are there but are not available to answer any questions about playground design or issues. The Property Team will be in touch as soon as possible if there are any issues that you need to be aware of etc.

If we have a project underway or you have a project that you have requested there may also be external contractors that come on site – generally they will only be there during session if it is an emergency. In some cases these contractors may visit site with no one else outside of a session. In this case normally the Property Manager will be in person or phone/teams contact with this contractor to induct them prior to starting works or to explain to them what the works are that they are going to be quoted for. The Centre will be notified prior to this happening, and we will use lockbox codes to enable the contractors to access.

Project works will not take place at a Centre without the Centre being notified of these works. This will come through the Property Manager, in most instances, and will generally be via email to the Centre email address.

If someone is on site or has come to the Centre that you do not know about or understand why they are there please first query them, then contact askproperty on 03 260 7787 to confirm.

Please note we may also have our own internal Property Managers visiting your Centre every two years. They are very approachable. Please do let them know if you have any local contractors that you like and have used in the past or could be used for future projects. We love to keep our contractors local and reuse them if they are good. They would also be particularly interested in if you are planning to carry out any projects or just at the start of thinking about a project. This helps us to provide you the right advice in advance and could save you a lot of money.