Spencer’s Field playground

In the north of the town, the green area known as Spencer’s Field included a children’s playground which had deteriorated to the point of being dangerous to use.  The playground is owned by Havant Borough Council (HBC), but they were not able to include this in their programme of playground refurbishment.  Therefore, in 2022, the Spencer’s Field Community Group began raising funds to pay for the refurbishment of the playground.

Following a public meeting at which there was a lot of support for the refurbishment, Emsworth Forum advised HBC that it wanted all of  Emsworth’s CIL allocation for 2022 to be put towards the project.  This amounted to about £30,000.  Substantial sums have been contributed by The Friends of Emsworth Community Health (£5,000) and the ERF (£5000 from its reserves), following up a commitment made by the Emsworth Residents Association. Other sums were contributed by the National Lottery, a remarkable sponsored skydive by local resident Geordie Richardson, miscellaneous fund-raising and a top-up from HBC.

Work began at the end of 2023.  It was impractical to build the new play area on the original site, so an adjacent site was used.  As of June 2024, the old site remained unrestored and fenced off.