Victoria Street Playspace Upgrade

For many years Victoria Street Playground in Ruffey Lake Park has been a great destination for children's play and family get togethers and now it's time for a refresh.

The playground upgrade has the support of both the Ruffey Lake Park Masterplan (2021) and the Waldau Masterplan (2019).

Funding is available this year to carry out the community engagement and playspace design. Physical works are scheduled to take place in 2023/24.

There’s so much to love about Victoria Street Playground: the sand and water play, the iconic Hummel tower, the giant slide, the family size picnic shelters, the flying fox, the giant mosaic geckos and much more.

We have some great ideas which include:

• a dedicated junior zone with more water and sand play elements
• more slides and swings and an accessible spinner
• rope maze, challenge course and new lookout tower
• improved paths around the playspace
• more seating in convenient locations.

There are some elements we can’t change, like:

• the location of the picnic shelters and toilets
• steepness of the site
• entry points from existing carparks.

We would like to this playground to be:

• a place that welcomes and excites children
• a playspace that makes people comfortable and encourages them to stay and play longer
• a place that engages all five senses (sight, smell, touch, taste and listening)
• a place that integrates stories and elements that are unique to the sites culture history and landscape
• a playspace that inspires imagination, adventure and creativity
• a playspace that welcomes people of all ages.

Play Destinations at Ruffey Lake Park

Victoria Street Playground will ultimately be one of four major play destinations within the park. Each play destination will offer something different.

• The Boulevarde playspace which has more level ground will offer all abilities access and water play.
• The Church Road playspace will offer low key nature play opportunities for younger children.
• King St Hill playspace will be a youth focused playspace that could include ropes/climbing/agility/scramble/parkour course and pump track.
• Victoria Street Playground will offer experiences for a range of ages and encourage creative and imaginative play.

First round of consultation

In 2022 you told us that the plan could be improved by ensuring their is greater visibility between playspaces, shaded play areas and more integration of playspaces with the landscaping. There were also a number of suggestions relating to improving the water play area. Suggested improvements included additional water pumps, gates and weirs and more water and sand play at ground level.

Over 200 people visited the Your Say page. Survey information was also gathered from 22 students at Doncaster Primary School and 18 residents completed surveys either online or in person. The majority of those surveyed were aged under 12 or between 25 and 50 years of age. The surveys revealed that most visitors were local families who would typically spend between 1-2 hours at the playground.

Second round consultation

For this round of consultation we asked the community what they thought about the proposed expansion of the sand and water play area and if they had any further suggestions for this space.

The feedback was favorable and people were excited about the proposed improvements and loved the expansion of the sand and water play area and the addition of a giant slide off the side of the steel tower. Suggestions included a request to make the slide as high as possible and to investigate the opportunity for a water spray children could run through. These suggestions will be considered in the final design.

Our next step will be to develop a series of detail designs based on the Victoria Street Playground Concept Plan. The playground upgrade works are planned for later this year.

Feedback for the second round of consultation has closed.

manningham@manningham.vic.gov.au

9840 9333