Ruthin choses children's play ship

By Spring time, children in Ruthin will be able to enjoy playing on a brand new Adventure Ship-Galleon - a ship shaped play facility with mast, rope, climbing nets, tower and slide as well as a new 20 metre zip wire after residents attended a special public meeting at Ysgol Brynhyfryd, Ruthin, to make a final decision on a new play facility for the park.

In the run up to the meeting, residents were given the opportunity to put forward their proposals as part of a new Participatory Budget (PB) process, which Denbighshire elected to use to enable residents to spend up to £25,000 of Denbighshire funds on the new facility. From an initial 30 proposals, these were short-listed down to ten favourites.

During the evening, the residents behind the ten bids had the opportunity to promote their idea with a three minute presentation – the bids were then scored by those at the meeting and the winners were announced on the night.

The total cost of both the ship and the zip wire comes to £28,013 which is being met by Denbighshire a further £1,000 pledged by Ruthin Town Council.

Far from being forgotten, the other eight proposals will be considered in future years as a Friends of Cae Ddol group has been set up to assist with the future planning and strategy for the park

Councillor Bobby Feeley, a member of the project working party, said: "It was a pleasure to be part of the meeting and experience the excitement and the buzz of interest, also the disappointment of those who's projects did not succeed, we hope some will succeed in future."

Jamie Groves, Denbighshire’s head of leisure services, compered the evening, and said afterwards: "It was a great success. The PB process was being used for the first time by Denbighshire - this really fits with our aim of bringing the council closer to the community.

"It was an excellent example of how members, officers and residents can work together collectively for the benefit of their communities.

"We are hoping this will be the start of a new process for Denbighshire and we hope to try this scheme with other communities throughout the county.

"Full credit goes to the people who worked on the bids, to the residents who attended the meeting and I would also like to thank Bill Ellis Jones of Together Creating Communities, which coordinates the participatory budget scheme, and his team for all their hard work throughout this process."