Recreation Aotearoa’s Parks Awards: ‘Exceptional award ’ goes to Waihī Beach playground

A bird’s eye view of Waihī Beach’s Island View Reserve and its award winning playground.

A popular seaside playground at Waihī Beach featuring artwork by local children has won a national award for being an “exceptional playspace”.

The Island View Reserve playground at Waihī Beach was named Playspace of the Year (within a $500,000 budget), at the Recreation Aotearoa’s Parks Awards.

The award recognises intentional development, innovative design, land rights acknowledgment, accessibility and inclusivity.

“Winning this award shows how much our community has achieved together.

“It’s wonderful to see the playground acknowledged as a special place for our children to play and learn about their culture and environment,” Peter Watson, Western Bay of Plenty District Council reserves and facilities manager, said.

Completed in late 2021, and formally opened in 2022, the playground includes drawings, poems and sculptures designed and created by children from Waihī Beach School and the local kōhanga reo.

Ensuring local children felt connected to the playground was an important goal from the start, says Peter.

“Community leaders facilitated story telling to inspire children and their ideas were either physically included or interpreted into the design.

“By involving them from the outset, we knew it would create a meaningful space for them and their parents to visit. We saw this happen as soon as the construction fence came down -within 15 minutes, the bike rack, car park, and playground were full.”

A large log that washed up at another reserve during a storm was added to the playground design and boardwalk timber from a walkway upgrade around Mauao was recycled and decorated with copper nail pictures of local seafood

‘’We wanted to create a play space with materials that felt unique and specific to Waihī Beach,” says Peter.

Tauranga City Council and Bay of Plenty Regional Council were also recognised at the awards.

Tauranga City Council won the Healthy Park of the Year Award for Mauao while, Bay of Plenty Regional Council received a merit award for Pāpāmoa Hills Cultural Heritage Park in the same category, and Tauranga City Council natural environment advisor Josh Clark was named “parks person of the year”.