What We Heard from the Survey

Sorrento-Blind Bay Community Park serves the neighbourhood, but is also a destination place to visit for both locals and visitors. Most people want to use the playground several times a week (44.2 per cent), weekly (35.5 per cent) or monthly (18.27 per cent).

Active Play is the top priority for new equipment, which is defined as any form of unstructured, child-led physical activity that gets children moving, breathing harder, and having fun. In second place was risk-taking and challenges. This is defined as activity that involves uncertainty, physical challenge, and building resilience. It focuses on mastering skills, such as climbing high or moving fast.

The survey showed the top five priorities for play activities were:
• Climbing
• Swinging
• Tower Structure
• Sliding
• Balancing

Preferred colours are Natural and Vibrant (43.7 per cent) followed by Natural and Earthy (37.9 per cent). Preferred theme is Natural, Forest, Animals (47.2 per cent) or no theme (23.1 per cent).

Other themes from the survey:
There was strong, repeated support for keeping the playground fenced and free of off-leash dogs, especially as a safe space for Toddlers and younger children, as well as neurodiverse children, especially those who may wander or need secure spaces.

There was a strong desire for the park to modernize the playground equipment and add diverse recreation options for kids, teens, and adults. Input identified:
• Gaps in activities for Toddlers (under 3) and Teens and youth
• High interest in multi-use recreation spaces for all-ages

Replace aging equipment with a modern, high-quality playground:
• Include climbing structures, ninja/parcour elements, rope features, zip line
• Add more swings (especially toddler swings)
• Add sports infrastructure such as a field with soccer nets or small enclosed turf/cage, basketball hoop or multi-use court, ball hockey area or Skate/BMX/scooter features.

Improvements wanted by survey respondents included:
• Maintain and expand shade structures over play areas (especially toddler zones) and over picnic tables
• Increase seating and gathering spaces
• Add water fountains
• Better lighting for extended safe use
• Ensuring materials and equipment are safe and heat-resistant

Now we will look at incorporating your input into a playground design. Remember, there's not an unlimited budget. So we look to make the choices that best reflects the wishes of park users and offer the most value.

Current playground equipment
The playground at Sorrento Blind Bay Community Park features a large shade structure adjacent to a water spray park. (Only the playground portion of the park will be getting an upgrade. The water spray park will remain as-is.)

It also has a number of features aimed at children ages 2-5 years:

• 2 diggers
• 1 extra wide slide
• 1 regular slide
• 3 ridged climbers
• 1 slide pole
• 1 toddler swing

Features aimed at children aged 5-12 years include:

• Double slide
• Single slide
• 4 ridged climbers
• Multi-platform structure
• Wooden arch bridge
• Slide pole
• Swinging monkey bars
• Runds
• 1 rung ladder
• 2 swing bays with 3 belt swings

Stay tuned for more information about the design and installation of the new equipment!