Laois people’s park playground scheduled for upgrade – but not until next year
The People's Park Portlaoise
THE playground at the People’s Park and Leisure Centre in Portlaoise is scheduled for a renewal of existing facilities and equipment.
The park, which opens from 8am to 9pm in the summer season and operates 8am to 6pm in winter, is situated at Pairc and Phobail, Timahoe Road and includes a sand play area, a cable runaway, springers and seesaw, a bicycle stand and a multi-swing unit. The surrounding environs offer the additional amenity of outdoor gym equipment.
The request to upgrade and expand the existing playground facilities was delivered to the recent meeting of Portlaoise municipal district by Cllr Tommy Mulligan, who urged that the council address a number of concerns; firstly, that, owing to the fact that many of the playground’s features were primarily made from wood and had thus taken on the early symptoms of rotting in the past few months of prolonged rainfall, they need to replaced and repaired; that additional swings be installed in order to combat the existing queues which were diminishing children’s enjoyment of the swings; and that the current disable access swing had to be replaced as the spring mechanism had stopped working.
He said: "A lot of the equipment there is wooden and a lot of it is rotten and, realistically, a lot of it needs to be replaced. I know a lot of parents bring their young kids down there, bring their toddlers down there and they'd love an opportunity to be able to swing their kids, but there's only one toddler swing down there. With the playground, then again there's no toddler swings available at the moment at the playgroun,d so I'm expecting that's part of some of the new equipment that's coming on."
A representative from Portlaoise municipal district stated that the playground was upgraded in 2023, adding an inclusion section before being updated again in 2025 with the upgrading of the junior section. The representative also addressed some of the safety concerns that members of the community had raised and said: "Weekly inspections are carried out and twice-yearly external inspections. We are awaiting the delivery of parts of some of the equipment, which can take from 12 to 16 weeks. Subject to funding, it is hoped that the remaining pieces of equipment will be replaced in 2027 and annual maintenance will be carried out in conjunction with the installation of the new equipment."
The motion was seconded by Cllr Caroline Dwane Stanley, who praised Laois Co Council for its commitment to refurbish and revamp existing facilities associated with the playground and highlighted how, we in Ireland, were "doing very well" compared with our European neighbours in providing safe and fun playground facilities and working to maintain them.
However, one councillor asked if the park should not be closed until the repairs were done, highlighting that a number of parents they had spoken to were resolved to not allow their children to use the facilities owing to their concerns about the safety of wooden structures and other aspects of the playground.
The playground remains open.
