Four parks in Kingston, including Manor Park in New Malden, could be upgraded with new artificial sports pitches in a £1.3million project.

However, the Friends of Manor Park group is opposing the proposed location for the new play zone in the park.

Manor Park

Last week, MUGA UK Ltd submitted a planning application to Kingston Council seeking permission for the "Installation of a football foundation Play Zone with painted porous asphalt surface, fencing and 4nos 8m tall flood lighting columns" at Manor Park Recreation Ground.

According to Simeon Linstead, Chair of the Friends of Manor Park and the recently formed Friends of Kingston's Parks and Green Spaces, Multi-Use Games Areas (MUGA) Play Zones are "accessible, caged and locked and can only be accessed via online booking system".

Linstead said: "The courts are caged and can be floodlit if you're hiring them in the evening."

Kingston Council found out about funding for the new Play Zones from the Football Foundation in 2024 and, according to Linstead, "ran a quick borough-wide piece of consultation" that received positive feedback but did not include residents close to, or Friends groups of, the particular parks involved.

He said that he feels that the authority "rushed" the initial consultation to meet the funding deadline, so the Friends group got in contact with it.

Linstead said: "We had a few concerns, but we found that any concern we had was dismissed in the interaction we had with the council."

In an exclusive interview with Nub News, Linstead explained that while the Friends do not oppose the installation of a Play Zone at Manor Park, it does oppose the proposed location.

He said: "We're very much in favour of investing in sport and investing in physical activity. Over the last 10 years, we've been working as a community group to initiate projects for a new playground, paths, and better maintained facilities, as well as better and clearer access to facilities.

"So we're really keen that the parks keep getting better and we're really desperate for more investment in the parks and green spaces because they so directly contribute to the well-being of our local communities."

However, Linstead explained, one of the big concerns for the Friends group is that the "location in the park for us isn't quite right".

He said: "It isn't out of place by a lot - it just needs a little adjustment."

Thus, the Friends met the council online, and the authority said that the location could be changed but at a later meeting on-site the council said it was too late.

After finding out the news, The Friends also ran a consultation this year to find out what local people thought about the proposals. "In addition to being uncomfortable with the location, it raised a whole lot of other concerns," Linstead said.

He added: "For example, disabled people, who are a target group of this Play Zone, were really worried that they wouldn't be able to use it because our car park in Manor Park does not have any disabled bays marked. Everything's scrubbed out now.

"There is no way, at a busy time, if you have mobility problems, you're going to get anywhere near the park.

"So it inhibits access to potentially quite a good piece of sports equipment. The Play Zones have four target audiences, with disabled people being one, along with low-income families, multi-ethnic communities, and women and girls."

Linstead said that the Friends' consultation asked locals what sports they would like to be played in the new MUGA.

He said that women and girls said that they would prefer netball over basketball, but the council had already predetermined what sports would be played before the consultation.

Linstead said: " But that's quite an important piece of information, and I don't think we have many netball facilities in the borough either."

The Friends Chair explained that the group is also worried about how local children will be able to access the new Play Zone as bookings must be made online.

He said: "We have lots of local kids from local schools who use the park spontaneously, and we want the council to assure us that local children can access this for free.

We want our local kids to access it for free and not be charged."

Linstead said that the group brought this up to Kingston Council, and it responded that the cost of using the Play Zone will be decided after planning has been approved.

He said: "But they've been working on that for the best part of two years."

'Problematic' location

Additionally, Linstead says that the proposed location of the Play Zone "is very problematic".

He said: "So the location that's been proposed for the play zone in Manor Park is at a point in the park that four or five years ago, we had opened up to create a connection between the front and the back of the park. It's sort of a pitch point.

"We opened it up, and we shifted our playground over. So there's a big gap.

"This means that you can see into the back of the park, and at the back of the park, you can see into the front, reducing the opportunity for antisocial behaviour because people doing antisocial behaviour don't want to be seen."

Linstead said that this also makes the park feel safer for women and girls and creates a "beautiful open space".

However, he said, the proposed location of the Play Zone is also "problematic" because it is very close to the park's bowls club, which has national tournaments and requires "not completely, but some degree of quiet".

The proposed location is also right next to the park's infants' play area.

Linstead said: "We've got two to five-year-olds playing on the equipment in the infants' play area. So, if you've got, say, a group playing five-aside football who can be a bit loud and a bit sweary, this is not good for infants."

Linstead said that the proposed Play Zone location will also block the route of a junior Parkrun the Friends group has organised for local school children to start in autumn.

He said: "So we've got all those problems. So, we said to the council officers furning a meeting at the park, 'Can you just move this thing over by about 20 or 30 metres, and move it behind the clubhouse. It's literally on the same line, but just push it over a bit'."

However, the proposed location has not been changed on the planning application.

Linstead says that the council should have consulted the local community about the plans before making the application live to "get it just right".

He says that a councillor told him that the authority felt that the "planning application was a robust way of consulting the community".

"The chair of the neighbourhood committee, Cllr Mark Durant, was actually trying to get the whole process paused, but the officers of the council said 'no, it's just got to keep on going'," Linstead said.

"So, we're really worried that the whole thing is just going to go through and emerge with these issues remaining."

The Friends of Manor Park group is now encouraging people to object to the current planning application, "because we just don't want it to happen in that precise location", says Linstead.

He added that he would like to see the council create a "proper partnership" with the local community through consultations in the future.

The full planning application for Manor Park's new Play Zone can be viewed here.

Beverley Park

Also among the four parks included in the Play Zone project is Beverley Park in New Malden, and its Friends group has also criticised Kingston Council for its lack of consultation with the local community.

In an exclusive interview with Nub News, Marian Freedman, member of the Friends of Beverley Park, said: "I think probably we would all agree that the main opposition and problem was the lack of any kind of engagement with residents at the very, very beginning.

"So, so many decisions have been made, and it's quite clear from the Football Foundation that there should be community engagement, and that hasn't happened.

"This decision's already been made before locals have been consulted. So, I think there's general dissatisfaction from that point of view."

As with the Manor Park Play Zone, the proposals for Beverley Park's new Play Zone went into planning without consultations with local residents.

Freedman said: "There was an election going on at a time when this was all being decided. We weren't being included in it.

"There are strong feelings on both sides, and we still don't actually know which sports were chosen for the Play Zone because that was, again, meant to be part of the consultation process.

"There's a variety of sports that you can apparently have in these MUGAs, and there hasn't been any consultation with anybody locally about that. So things are being imposed and not in the way they should be done, really."

She added: "There's quite a lot of money coming in from the Football Foundation for this project, so it's a good investment for Kingston, but we want to get it right."

Freedman said that the Friends of Beverley Park group does not oppose the application, but was not happy with the original proposed location for the Play Zone as it was "hard up against the park railings, which was inappropriate for lots and lots of reasons".

However, she said, the proposed location has now been changed and moved away from the park railings.

Freedman added that the Play Zone may block the view of the park for residents living on Parkview Road and said that some residents may be concerned about the noise and the floodlights coming from the Play Zone at night.

She said: "We haven't actually even seen any information yet about the way the Play Zone is going to be managed. As far as I know, you're going to have to pay to use it with your credit card."

Freedman also expressed concerns as to whether the Play Zone will be inclusive to underprivileged groups.

She said: "It was also meant to be aimed at underprivileged groups. That is why the money is coming, to encourage underprivileged groups to get involved in sports more. "So there's a question about who decides the groups, how they're accessed, who gets priority, and who gets priority over booking, because booking will be done online and not with a real person."

Freedman added: "So there are those kinds of questions that are still running, which we don't have answers to. So, I think people are frustrated that decisions are being made without their knowledge.

"And it seems to be on track; our train won't be stopping, unfortunately."

But Freedman says she sees the benefits in installing the Play Zone at Beverley Park; she just hopes, like Linstead, that the council will involve the community more in future projects.

The full application for the new layzone in Beverley Park can be viewed here.

Kingston Council's response

A Kingston Council spokesperson told Nub News: "Kingston Council is working with the Football Foundation to deliver four new Play Zones across the borough, creating more opportunities for residents, particularly children and young people, to be physically active.

"The need for improved community sports facilities was identified through the Active Kingston Framework, which brings together local partners to tackle physical inactivity and improve health and wellbeing.

"In 2024, the council sought borough-wide engagement, receiving over 300 responses through the Let's Talk Kingston platform and community events to help shape the proposals.

"Following consideration of community need, accessibility, site suitability, existing provision and consultation feedback, planning applications have now been submitted for Beverley Park, Manor Park, Churchfields Recreation Ground and Kingston Road Recreation Ground. "These are currently subject to formal public consultation, with residents, stakeholders and community groups invited to review the proposals and submit comments through the Planning Portal.

"Alongside the planning process, the council is continuing to engage with local stakeholders, including directly engaging with Friends Groups, through letters to residents in the areas, stakeholder briefings, notices at the sites, information on the Let's Talk Kingston digital platform and a programme of local drop-in sessions.

"Feedback from all interested parties is welcomed as part of the consultation process."