News Maidstone’s play areas are opening up again
Maidstone Borough Council is pleased to be reopening all of its children’s play areas and public toilets from 10am on Saturday 4 July.
People are being welcomed back and asked to adhere to social distancing rules in all areas.
All children’s play equipment has been maintained throughout lockdown and inspected for safety.
People are being asked to maintain social distancing and if a child has a high temperature, cough, or cold, to not allow them into the play area.
At busy times, the council is asking that children’s time on play equipment be limited to 20 minutes to allow other families to enjoy the facilities too. Therefore, if the play area is busy, parents are being asked to come back later. There will be no food or drink allowed inside the play areas and families are being asked to use hand sanitiser or wash their hands before and after play to help keep the play areas clean for others.
Jennifer Shepherd, Head of Environment and Public Realm said:
“It is great to be able to welcome back children into our play areas. As with all other areas of our lives that are slowly recovering from the lockdown there will be extra guidance that we hope everyone will follow.“Unfortunately we are not going to be able to clean the play equipment as we have over 70 play areas to look after and cannot control their use, therefore we are asking parents and carers to take extra care when they are using them and wash children’s hands or use sanitiser before and after they use it. We have arranged signage to go up at each play area explaining the new guidelines.
“Our public toilets will also be opening up and there will be hand sanitisers at the entrances to the toilets and more signage to remind people to socially distance and wash their hands. The busiest toilets in Mote Park will be cleaned hourly and we will close one block to clean the other. All others will be cleaned twice daily. We will be keeping a close eye on all areas and will make changes if we need to.”