Milburn Park – Destination Play Area?
We are inviting feedback from our residents on a proposed new play area at Milburn Park. The consultation details are in a newsletter that will be delivered to every door in the Parish next week.
Milburn Park is a strategically important historic park located in our increasingly popular coastal town. It was a prominent park in the past and many will have memories of it in it’s hay day, but it has been somewhat neglected for many years now.
Milburn Park is situated at the south of Newbiggin Bay and has views of the entire bay and the port of Blyth to the distance in the south. Milburn Park has a thriving Bowls Club that was founded in 1933 and was the site of tennis courts and other recreational areas. The Northumberland Coastal Path passes through Milburn Park as does Newbiggin by the Sea Parkrun which usually takes place every Saturday morning.
The Town Council is proposing the development of £250,000 new play facility at Milburn Park. We already have £100,000 committed in our current budget and intend to request match funding and grants to hit our funding target. The development of the new play area will see the existing play area at Spital Burn being removed and a new destination play area developed on the land next to the Bowls Green as shown in the location plan below.
The Town Council are working in partnership with Newbiggin Community Ventures and Newbiggin Development Trust on a larger project to regenerate Milburn Park and the south of
Newbiggin Bay into an attractive gateway to the town via:
• Transferring the playpark to the upper level;
• Possible training/exercise equipment;
• Crazy golf;
• Promenade extension (boardwalk);
• Beach Huts at the south end of the Promenade;
• Observation platform at Spital Point (Needle’s Eye);
• Scheme to provide holiday glamping pods.
The overall regeneration of the area through these projects will also seek to increase the existing parking provision at Spital Burn so that local residents are not affected by increased parking. The larger project will be subject to community consultation in the future.
The regeneration of Milburn Park and the south of the Bay is intended to be fully DDA compliant in line with our aim of being an accessible town. It will provide attractive facilities for our residents, encourage tourism into the town from the existing Sandy Bay holiday park and the newly permitted 102 pitch holiday park to improve the economic prosperity of the town.
The proposals
This consultation relates to the creation of the destination play area only. We aspire to create facilities similar to those provided at Carlisle Park in Morpeth and Ridley Park in Blyth. This specific project in intended to be a partnership between Newbiggin by the Sea Town Council and Northumberland County Council.
Spital Burn Play area is largely inaccessible and remote from the other focal points of Newbiggin, being hidden from sight due to the incline of the land to the north. The proposed play area is highly prominent and visible from the North of the Bay. The destination play area will be visually distinctive and contain bespoke elements of play. It is intended that the play area will be colourful, attractive, accessible, and highly visible attracting families and larger groups, both residents and visitors, to stay in the town for longer.
To ensure the play area is highly visible a lighthouse climbing frame of 3-5 m in height is proposed for the most eastern point of the play area; the play area will also feature a splash pad. The play equipment to be included should promote the development of children via physical, cognitive, social emotional and creative means. In se-
lecting play equipment, we would be looking for the opportunity for children to balance, co-ordinate, bounce, climb, crawl, jump, share, spin, swing, learn, take risks, use their imagination, play alone, make friends etc.
We’ve asked a play company to mock up some visuals of what we could expect – these are shown below.
(Note – the final play area design will go through the appropriate tender process to appoint a contractor).
We’d love to hear your views on our destination play area proposals.
Send us your feedback by email, post or visit the consultation on survey monkey on the following link by Friday 30th April 2021:
https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/MilburnPark-DestinationPlay
