CHILDREN and their parents on a housing estate at Hurn have been left reeling by the news that their playground is to be ripped out at the end of the month - barely four years after it was built by a local charity.

Set in a series of clearings in a belt of trees between Moors Close and Matchams Lane the playground was opened in June 2000 after a 30-year campaign by villagers and a £30,000 fund-raising effort by the Project Christchurch community group spearheaded by the late Roy Dunster.

But in a bombshell letter delivered to homes in Moors Close this week Hurn Parish Council says the play equipment set among a belt of trees between Moors Close and Matchams Lane no longer met strict safety rules and would be removed.

In the letter parish council chairman Margaret Phipps said the equipment was also regularly vandalised and there was no budget for replacement or repair.

Now parents have launched a petition and protest campaign to save the playground, which they point out is is the only facility for youngsters in the isolated village which has no bus service and only narrow, busy, lanes without lights or pavements to reach the nearest alternative play areas in Christchurch.

Moors Close resident Pat Morgan said: "It took us all working together to get it and it is going to take us all working together to keep it."

And near neighbour Russell Miles added: "It is a spit in the face to the gentleman who spent the last three years of his life getting the playground."

Mrs Phipps said the playground had been under discussion by the parish council for several months following safety reports by Christchurch council.

She said: "We have been advised by them that it is not up to the required safety standards. We don't have a choice, there is no way we can afford to take the risk. There is a bit of a furore but we are open to talk and if there is anyway we can help or support the replacement we will do what we can."

News of the playground closure comes shortly after several trees were felled without warning in the woodland buffer along Matchams Lane but Twynham Housing Association, which owns the land, says the two events are not connected.

Twynham environmental services supervisor Graham Lemon said a 10-foot wide swathe of semi-mature trees was axed to clear power lines, improve sightlines at the Moors Close junction and avoid hazards to road users from falling branches.

First published: August 19