Sliding home

Hammond Park a huge success

Aug 29, 2019 | 4:14 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – It was a good day to celebrate the rebuild of a playground in town and the young lady who helped design it.Seven-year-old Brinley Gurney was upset when the City removed the slide from Hammond Park, as it was earmarked as one of a dozen playgrounds to be replaced under the City’s Playground Replacement program.

It was suggested she go to City Hall to voice her concerns.

And she did.

But Mayor Lyn Hall wasn’t in the office at the time and she was directed to the Parks division, where she met Chris Bjorn.

“She was very polite, asked me when [the work] is going to be done. And it so happened, it was scheduled for this year. So I said ‘Brinley, would you like to give some feedback this playground?'”

He gave her some homework, to visit each of the previously replaced playgrounds and tell what she thought of them. Bjorn says, at the time, he wasn’t sure he would hear back.

“Mid-April, I get a phone call from Brinley, saying ‘I’ve done my homework.’ So we met at the park with the design that we were going to be working on and we did some alterations and now we have a fantastic playground that’s had input from a seven-year-old who really is keen on playground structures.”

And today, Brinley, her family and friends and a few others took time on a beautiful Thursday morning to enjoy one of the city’s revamped playgrounds.

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