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Work on new sports area underway

Buckhurst Field's multi-use games area is about to be transformed (Image: South Swindon Parish Council) Work is officially underway on Swindon's newest sports area which is being inspired by a sporting facility in Birmingham. Improvement works at Buckhurst Field in Walcot were first announced in June 2024, as South Swindon Parish Council promised more recreational activities for local residents. Advertisement Plans include restored football pitches, new changing rooms, a rebuilt skatepark, a new cycleway, a tarmacked car park and a play zone. Now, with almost all of these upgrades having been completed, work has begun on the Buckhurst Field PlayZone . Fencing has gone up at the site of Walcot's new PlayZone (Image: South Swindon Parish Council) A playzone is a term coined by the Football Foundation which describes a "safe, inclusive and accessible outdoor facility that brings communities together through recreational forms of football and a range of other sports". The programme, which is seeing playzones built across the UK aims to tackle inequalities in physical activity by investing money and resources into communities with the greatest need. Advertisement A mock-up plan for the site (Image: South Swindon Parish Council) Swindon's one, which is being built at the site of Buckhurst's old MUGA (multi-use games area), has been modelled off a similar sports facility in Birmingham after parish councillors visited the city's site. It will include provisions for football, basketball and volleyball. Parish councillors and WASP staff took inspiration from this sports area in Birmingham (Image: South Swindon Parish Council) The £600,000 Buckhurst Field improvement project, of which this play zone is a part, marks South Swindon Parish's largest-ever investment into recreation facilities in the town. Advertisement "The Birmingham PlayZone facility will be replicated at Buckhurst Field this year," said a spokesperson for South Swindon Parish Council. "Heras fencing has gone up around the Buckhurst Field Multi-Use-Games-Area to prepare for work to transform the site into a Football Foundation playzone." The parish council is working in collaboration with Football Foundation, WASP and Swindon Borough Council. A parish council spokesperson previously explained that the new PlayZone would provide an "improved play experience for casual football and basketball." Recommended reading: Advertisement Approved planning permission states: 'The purpose of the Play Zone Scheme is to invest in areas with the greatest need, to encourage specific priority groups to be more active. "The specific priority groups that The Football Foundation wished to prioritise as part of this scheme are lower socio-economic groups, women and girls, disabled people and people with long-term health conditions, and ethnically diverse communities.'