PARENTS with young children have welcomed a £55,000 revamp for a play area in North Oxford.

Work began on the new-look Alexandra Park play area, in Summertown, on Tuesday.

The city council work is expected to take three months and the new look play area is planned to be unveiled for young people to use in January 2010.

Families who are members of the Friends of the Park group have been consulted on the new look play area, which will include swings, a see-saw and a sandpit as well as a new climbing frame.

Laura Evers, 38, from North Oxford, a founding member of the friends’ group, said her daughters Abi, five, and Lucie, three, would enjoy the new play area.

She added: “We worked very closely with the council on this, and made suggestions regarding the design of the play area.

“Alexandra Park is one of the only green spaces around here so we thought it was important that there should be a decent play area.

“We got involved because there was a stone wall on the west side of the park, which was in danger of falling down, and we urged the council to make it safe.

“After that, the council encouraged us to start up a friends’ group and a group of us met monthly to take things forward.”

Mum-of-two Wendy Welpton, 35, from Thorncliffe Road, Summertown, added: “My sons Charlie and Cameron, who are four and two, will love this play area.

“Everyone in Summertown has really supported us and £500 raised from our fun day earlier this year will go towards bulb-planting.”

Alexandra Park, off Woodstock Road, also has tennis courts and a basketball court.

The basketball site will be closed while the refurbishment takes place.

The new play area will be fenced off with self-closing gates and a new hedge along the south side of the play area.

There will also be new park tables and benches.

Antonia Bance, council board member for social inclusion and young people, said: “We are committed to improving the play areas in the city and I am pleased that the work is beginning on Alexandra Park.

“Young people will be able to enjoy the new equipment when the play area opens early next year.”

Jean Fooks, Liberal Democrat councillor for Summertown, added: “I am delighted that we shall soon have such an excellent new play area in Alexandra Park.

“It was much in need of improvement and the emphasis on planting and natural materials in the new design will make it truly outstanding.”

The council’s £2.5m programme of investment in the city’s run-down play areas began in March when diggers rolled on to the Botley Road recreation ground in West Oxford.

The £65,000 renovation, which saw under-used facilities from a play area in Helen Road moved to a new location next to the West Oxford Community Centre, was the first to be completed in the project to revamp 52 rusting play areas across the city.

The second play area to be revamped was Bernwood Road, in Barton, which was completed in mid-April.