A total of 53 parks are re-opening on Saturday including those at Broadstone recreation ground, Poole Park, Quomps in Christchurch and Sandbanks recreation ground.

The remaining play areas will re-open on Monday. Before opening, each site will be inspected for safety, cleaned and where necessary grass will be cut.

The playgrounds should all pose a low risk of infection when reopened as they have been closed for over three months. If guidance is followed the main risks would be via person to person contact and touch points. The key message is for parents to take hand sanitiser and encourage children to use it regularly and to wash their hands before coming and upon returning home.

New signage will be placed on each gate or entrance encouraging users to use the park responsibly. Visitors should be maintaining social distancing and BCP Council suggests visitors ‘Think Twice’ – if the park is busy. Limiting the length of time of your park visits initially would also help so that more children are able to use the facilities.

Cllr Felicity Rice, Portfolio Holder for Environment said, “Our teams are working hard to make sure parks open safely and I’d like to thank them for acting so quickly. However, we have over a hundred playparks and it simply is not possible to open them all overnight, but we are opening them as quickly as we can.  We also ask everyone to please be responsible for your own children’s safety, please read the guidance and we look forward to families enjoying our playparks again.”

The authority says it will continue to monitor the situation across the area with Public Health.  If there are concerns, the option of closures will be considered.

For information on which parks are opening, and when see www.bcpcouncil.gov.uk/playgrounds.