Park makeover brings community together

Saturday 18 April 2015

Residents have given a housing estate in St Clement a bit of a makeover and it’s helped make it a safer place to live.

Clos de Roncier’s ballpark used to be a bit of a “concrete jungle” – one the children didn’t want to play in and the residents were determined to make it a more inviting place to hang out.

Melanie Whiteman from the Clos de Roncier Residents Group said: “It wasn’t being used, a lot of the children were playing on the road on the estate instead, we had complaints about that and when we approached the children they said it wasn’t nice in there and it was boring and that was where the idea started to spring from.”

The group enlisted the help of local artist Ben Robertson – a mural painter who gave up his time for free and worked with the youngsters to get some ideas for their new play area.

Ben said: “We went up to Clos de Roncier about a week before and had a day for the kids and they were all drawing, the brief was sport. We took their designs away and were inspired to create the final piece.”

Last weekend Ben and his team were back for the Clos de Roncier Community Day and set about brightening up the park and giving the children a go with the spray paint.

Ben said: “It was amazing, the feedback was great. People were saying it had brightened up a forgotten corner and for the amount of time we had, it was pretty amazing.”

Melanie said: “Everyone was really impressed. I think we were amazed at how good it actually looked.

“They are already using the ball park – even the teenagers are going in more and having a kick around and we’ve noticed that they are getting the little ones to join in too.”

It’s proving a big hit with the landlord too and Andium Homes say the Community Day was a great event.

Ben is hoping to make over a few more Jersey estates and says it only takes a few hours but really helps brighten them up.

The Residents Group hope he’ll be back again soon to help do up the childrens’ play area on the other side of the estate and make it a better place for the young children to play.