Why a Park Manager from Peckham chose TGO gyms?

Thinking of putting in an outdoor gym?

Whenever, I fancy a bit of a break, want to book a holiday or a hotel, the first thing that I do is go to Trip Advisor. What were other people’s experiences of that resort or that hotel? The pictures might look great, the reality may be quite different. What I want most of all is a recommendation, as I have neither the time nor the money to constantly find things out for myself!

Before coming to work at TGO I had been working in the public sector for the last 13 years, always in parks and open spaces and latterly as a parks manager in the London borough of Southwark.

One of my parks had a very tired and pretty dilapidated trim trail dotted somewhat haphazardly around the sports fields. It had become a bit of a ‘health and safety’ nightmare as the signage (if there had ever been any!) was long gone and the wood was rotting and splintering in parts. Yet there was still a demand for equipment to exercise on in the park. As I was bound to do, I had to have the unsafe, rotting equipment removed. Cue outrage from many corners! Something needed to be done.

There was a Young Friends of the Park group and they were given the task of coming up with some ideas. They initially wanted just to replace the trim trail, in wood, and just make it a bit more challenging. I wasn’t convinced. It seemed a bit too retro for these youngsters really, and wood requires a high degree of TLC!

I had heard about outdoor gym equipment and so did a quick ‘Google’ and was pleased to find a company supplying the very thing literally just down the road in Peckham. I asked them to come down and do a presentation to the Young Friends group. They happily obliged and I was soon being told that an outdoor gym was what was wanted!

So, now comes the usual hurdle......money. I certainly didn’t have enough in my parks budget. The Council ran a fund called Cleaner Greener Safer. It had twice yearly rounds and the idea was that local communities applied for funding for projects that would improve their locality.
The Young Friends submitted their application and went along to the Community Council meeting to speak in support of it.
The project for a new outdoor gym in Peckham Rye Park was awarded £20,000.

Now for the procurement process.

We needed something that was safe, complying to all available standards, sturdy and as vandal proof as possible, that would be installed with the minimum of disruption and damage and that required very little maintenance.