A five-year council plan sets £4m against Brentwood's 10 playgrounds. Cromwell Road is beyond its life, and King George's gets £2.5m in 2030/31.
Brentwood Borough Council has put a price and a date on every playground it runs. A draft five-year replacement programme sets out £4,025,000 of capital spending across the ten Brentwood playgrounds the council manages, and it names which ones get done when.
The programme went to the council’s Clean and Green Committee on Monday 7 September (Play Space Replacement Programme, 7 September 2026). It is built on the last independent annual inspection, carried out in October 2024 by The Play Space Company, which holds RoSPA and Register of Play Inspectors International accreditation.
The five-year total, year by year
The money is heavily back-loaded, because one site dominates the final year.
| Year | Estimated capital |
|---|---|
| 2026/27 | £275,000 |
| 2027/28 | £345,000 |
| 2028/29 | £400,000 |
| 2029/30 | £255,000 |
| 2030/31 | £2,750,000 |
Only the first year is close to being real money. Officers say the £345,000 needed for 2027/28 will have to be put forward as a capital request in the normal budget process, and that the whole schedule is reviewed every year against the next independent inspection.
The two sites in the worst condition
Cromwell Road Play Space is the bluntest entry in the report. The play area is more than 20 years old and “beyond life expectancy”. Its equipment does not conform to the current playground standards BS 1176 and BS 1177, and because of its age the problems cannot be engineered out. The report lists finger entrapments, head entrapments and out-of-tolerance gaps.
The recommended action is to remove every item of play equipment and replace the lot. Cromwell Road has £10,000 against it this year and £50,000 in 2027/28.
Ingrave Johnstone Recreation Ground is the other one, and it arrives on the list for an unusual reason. A review of the tri-party agreement covering the site established that Brentwood Borough Council is ultimately responsible for the play equipment there. The report says the site “requires immediate investment to replace end-of-life equipment to ensure the play space can remain open to the public”, and recommends removing the existing play area and installing a new one to current standards. It carries £75,000 in 2027/28.
Where this year’s £275,000 goes
The 2026/27 allocations are spread across seven sites:
- Courage’s Playing Fields, £150,000, the largest single item this year
- King George’s Playing Fields, £65,000
- River Road, £20,000
- Bishops Hall, Cromwell Road, Hutton Recreation Ground and North Road, £10,000 each
Hutton Polo Fields, Ingrave Johnstone and Warley Playing Fields get nothing in 2026/27.
King George’s, and the £2.5m in 2030/31
King George’s Playing Fields is described as a flagship destination site and a priority for future investment. Its play area was majorly refurbished between 2020 and 2022 and is in good condition, so the report proposes planning now for full reinvestment in 2030/31, before condition declines and replacement becomes urgent. That single line is the £2.5m that makes the final year look the way it does. The other £250,000 in 2030/31 is River Road, where the safety surfacing is already showing early deterioration and a full replacement is flagged for some point between 2030 and 2035.
The skatepark at King George’s needs attention sooner. The report recommends repolishing and resealing the concrete, repairing split copings and filling divots within the next year.
Warley, Hutton and the clay problem
At Warley Playing Fields, the central section of the toddler area has been vandalised over time and the play value is now low. Officers recommend removing those items and turning the space into an inclusive picnic area with more seating for families. The zip wire is 15 years old or more, does not comply with the current standards, and is to be replaced along with its safety surface.
At Hutton Recreation Ground, the play area itself was installed in 2021 and is in very good condition. The recommendations there are about older children instead. The report cites an increase in reported anti-social behaviour and limited provision for teenagers, and proposes a new multi-use games area or social area, outdoor gym equipment and shaded seating, sited on the Rayleigh Road side of the park where there is most natural surveillance, with CCTV considered.
One local factor runs through the whole document. Brentwood sits on shrink-swell clay, which expands when wet and shrinks when dry. Where that movement affects the ground under Matta safety tiles, it accelerates distortion, separation and trip hazards, so a surface sold with a ten-year guarantee may not last ten years here. The report recommends replacing Matta tiles with wet pour surfacing in several places, partly because wet pour can be repaired by the council’s own team.
What the council has to spend on repairs now
The Green Spaces maintenance budget for play area repairs is around £21,000 a year across all ten sites, roughly £2,100 each. That covers minor in-house repairs only. It does not stretch to new equipment or new surfacing, which is why replacement has to come through the capital programme.
The alternative officers set out is to do nothing until something fails. They advise against it: specialist play equipment has long procurement lead times, and a play area could be closed for six to twelve months while a replacement is ordered and installed.
What it means for you:
- Nothing is shutting yet. This is a draft programme the committee was asked to note, not a schedule of closures. Equipment is only closed off if an inspection finds it unsafe.
- If you use Cromwell Road, expect a full rebuild rather than repairs. The report says the current equipment cannot be brought up to standard.
- Developer money is meant to help. Officers want a borough-wide Play Space Strategy so that Section 106 contributions from new housing are directed to the play areas that need them most. Our Brentwood planning news page tracks the schemes those contributions come from.
- Eleven more play areas are outside this plan. Sites held in the Housing Revenue Account, including Capon Close, Colet Road, Maple Close and Railway Square, are inspected by the same team but funded separately, and this report does not cover them.
Other play areas in the borough are listed on our things to do in Brentwood page.
Minutes and decisions for Monday’s meeting had not been published when this was written, so the recommendations above are what officers put to the committee, not a confirmed decision. We will update this page when the record appears.
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