Nikki Jarvis

nikki.jarvis@essnmedia.co.uk

NEW Addington is expected to get a new youth centre, a playground for children aged under 10 and safer roads, thanks to a huge injection of money.

The council expects these new facilities to be up and running by the end of March next year.

The good news comes after £270,000 was granted to the estate by the previous Government about six months ago.

Now firm decisions are being made on where to spend the cash. New Addington Councillor Tony Pearson said: "A lot of people have been talking about moving things forward for a long time, but finally there is now the will to get things started.

"A new park just for children under 10 will be built on Hares Bank where there is nothing now.

"There are lots of grandparents who look after their grandchildren every day in New Addington and this will be brilliant for them.

"I'm a grandad myself and I'm really looking forward to taking my grandchildren there.

"We'll also be transforming the changing rooms in Milne Park into a youth centre so kids will have something to do in the evenings and hopefully we can turn it into a café as well, so everyone can go in there for a coffee during the day and look out over the park.

"The point of everything we do with the money is to improve the environment for everybody on the estate."

About £65,000 will be spent on the children's park and roughly £20,000 is being earmarked for the youth centre.

Along with the new facilities, Mr Pearson said more zebra crossings will be installed on the estate's roads – exactly how many will be decided in the next few weeks.

Mum-of-three Cherise Gillam, 24, of King Henry's Drive, said: "All of my children are under 10 and I will probably take them up to the new playground.

"It's a good idea but I'm a bit sceptical about it just being for under-10s because I don't see how they will keep the older teenagers away from it.

"If it works, though, it will be really positive because older kids tend to bomb around a lot more.

"Also gangs of older kids hanging around can be intimidating for the young ones – and a lot of them tend to smoke, which isn't nice for little children to be around."

Meetings will take place with council officers over the next few weeks to finalise the plans.

The money must be spent by the end of March, but it has not yet been decided what the remainder will be used for.