PLAY AND RECREATION IN RURAL CEREDIGION - CEREDIGION COUNTY COUNCIL
The Play and Recreation in Rural Ceredigion project by Ceredigion County Council brought people together to improve play and leisure facilities in their local area.
Four Community Councils joined forces with the County Council to develop a community vision for play and recreation in Llanddewi Brefi, Llanon, Cardigan a Ponterwyd. Felinfach was added as an additional community. Community events were held in each community during summer 2016. The events were designed to collect feedback from the local community about play and leisure facilities in their area in order to put together a Community Action plan to improve the facilities.
In order to engage with the key stakeholders effectively the consultations were made young person friendly and promoted as a village party. Free food was available and a free open access play session was run alongside each consultation. The consultations were visual, interactive and bilingual.
Evidence from the event found that providing free food and activities at consultation events increase community participation and that using young person friendly consultation techniques are essential to support the inclusion of the younger age group.
The way the Play and Recreation groups were designs allowed for it to be transferred to any community. The approach from the project has furthermore been adopted to engage with the Rhydlewis community, and have developed a template to support communities to engage with local residents, and to submit grant applications to improve facilities in their area.
Two new community groups have been supported to establish themselves as constituted groups with independent bank accounts. – Parc y Felin play committee and Friends of Cardigan Skatepark.
The project has resulted in more community involvement in local play areas and an increased understanding of the Local Authority in the play and leisure needs of communities. The activity has increased confidence, communication and engagement both within the communities themselves and between the Local Authority and the communities.
There’s now strong evidence that there is a need for the Rural Community Development project to enhance play areas in the four community areas who originally came forward to take part in this activity, and there is good evidence of community support to enhance the European funding bid. It is anticipated that the final outcome of this activity will be improvement of play and recreation facilities in Ceredigion rural areas.
You can read the reports on each of the four areas below.
This project has received funding through the Welsh Government Rural Communities – Rural Development Programme 2014-2020, which is funded by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development and the Welsh Government.
Further Reading
