District Council set to release Oakmeeds Playground site with NO REPLACEMENT

A potential blow has been dealt to children in and around Chanctonbury Road in Burgess Hill with news that they could lose a popular playground.

If West Sussex County Council receive planning permission for the proposed Special School on land at Oakmeeds Community School, Mid Sussex District will opt to take a financial settlement from WSCC for giving up their lease of the children's playground, snubbing the chance to have a replacement playground next to London Meed school.



Plans for the new special school includes the children's playground being moved approximately 100 metres to the edge of the London Meed school playground. The District Council are going to reject this option due to serious security concerns for the primary school.

Instead, MSDC will choose not to re-site the playground and will bank the money. The money will supposedly be spent on the Meeds Ward in the future. It would not surprise us if the windfall is used to purchase some onstreet parking metres.

The issue we have here at Burgess Hill Uncovered is how can there be serious security concerns of putting a children's playground on the edge of London Meed School? It's a childrens playground, hardly a shooting range or an enclosure for Lions with a dodgy lock on the cage door! If there was a genuine security concern, then WSCC wouldn't have offered this piece of land as the new site for the playground.