Pomona St Playground upgrade encourages new ways to play

A newly upgraded playground in South City has reopened to the public, revealing a host of innovative play features not previously seen in Invercargill’s neighbourhood parks.

An opening ceremony was held at Pomona St Playground on Wednesday, officially marking the completion of the play space after nearly four months of construction.

Invercargill City Council Play Advocate Dr Damien Puddle, known as Dr Play, said local schools, including Newfield Park School and Southland Girls’ High School, had been involved in the design of the playground.

“The entire design of the playground is based on community engagement and school involvement, which is something we’ve never done before,” he said.

Pomona St Playground was the first full playground renewal in Invercargill in recent years, representing a new approach to maintaining and refreshing play spaces in the city.

“Rather than spreading our limited resources thinly across many sites with small, piecemeal fixes, we’ve decided to target entire playgrounds to upgrade.

“This allows us to look at the whole design, working closely with the community to incorporate more inclusive play opportunities and make innovative choices, while being more cost effective overall,” Puddle said.

Pomona St Playground was selected as the site for renewal after a detailed analysis of playgrounds across the city identified it as the area with the greatest need and most potential for impact.

Puddle said the playground’s design included multi-purpose playable components guided by the Play Opportunities Through Environmental Design (POpTED) approach, which aims to include play opportunities as part of functional design elements.

“Features like timber edging can serve a functional purpose while enabling play opportunities like balancing,” Puddle said.

The playground would feature the city’s first public sandpit, with a play box of second-hand sand tools donated by Jennian Homes, enabled through support from Active Southland.

Other novel features would include fruit trees and herb plantings, a climbable timber shelter and a section of pump track, while the landscaping would incorporate several repurposed materials, such as macrocarpa sleepers, rocks and posts.

Construction of the new playground was completed in approximately three-and-a-half months at a cost of just over $100,000.

Some elements remained to be installed, including a core board in English and te reo Māori that would support people with limited speech or language ability to communicate.

Playable art would also be painted on the footpaths to complete a 'ground is lava' challenge, with the designs and placement based on feedback from Newfield Park School students.

Puddle said it was satisfying to see the new playground come together so quickly.

“Pomona St Playground is a small park but it’s such a huge asset to this neighbourhood and to the city,” he said.

“Seeing children – and adults – walk into the playground and immediately find something fun to interact with is incredibly rewarding and shows our award-winning Play Strategy in action.”