A COMMUNITY has joined forces to campaign for an adventure playground for disabled children to be refurbished.

Richard Jefferies Adventure Playground, off Eldene Drive, was closed earlier this year with the promise that it would be refurbished.

But Swindon council has now announced that it might not go ahead due to budget pressures.

The playground, which is locked up behind high metal railings, has a wooden play fort that was only installed in 2008.

A group of residents is now campaigning for the playground to be refurbished and opened to the public again.

Carolanne Bond, 65, of Stanley Honey Court, Walcot, said: “It’s somewhere for the children to play and interact with each other on neutral ground.

“I think it’s disgusting what the council is doing.”

Louise Ricobi, 43, of Marigold Close, Moredon, said: “I used to play here when I was a child and my children used to play here.

“There used to be lots of equipment and activity schemes going on there but now they have all been either vandalised or taken away.”

She said there is a Facebook group in support of the playground with more than 250 members and she was thinking of starting a petition too.

The playground opened 35 years ago and was to be refurbished using £100k from the council and the Government’s Playbuilder scheme.

Coun Mark Dempsey (Lab), who also wants to see the playground refurbished and reopened, said: “There is a whole groundswell of support to secure this site’s future.

“Otherwise it is going to be left derelict and the danger is the longer it’s left the more vandalised it is going to get.”

The Friends of Richard Jefferies Adventure Playground is campaigning to save the site – contact friendsrjap@yahoo.co.uk or contact Teresa on 07729 149537.

A spokesman for Swindon council said the Government was expected to make a final decision about whether to withdraw the Playbuilder funding in either August or September.

He added: “Keith Williams, cabinet member for Streetscene, is writing to the Education Secretary Michael Gove to impress upon him that Richard Jefferies is of great importance to us and we have made great strives to get it completed.

“So we are doing all we can to make sure we get the money to finish it.”