So we're back again for another dose of Kevin and his Castleford project. Last week we saw how the council and local community could clash and pull together, in one episode, to build a much needed bridge in the town. This week it's all about three public parks in the area, all with a distinctly different starting point and execution, and their apparent need to be revitalised after "Thatcher pulled the plug" on these spaces...as Mr McCloud puts it (I may paraphrase slightly).

The question you instinctively have going in to the program is just how much simply building public recreational space can help a community, especially with regard to crime and perception of crime. Unfortunately the program never really answers this, merely alluding to a drop in delinquency in certain areas. Perhaps the program never could answer this question, at least not before a full generational turn over to see the effects of a new set of children on an area they have no real ownership over.

But what was amazingly interesting was how different parts of this same town took to these ideas and ran with them, with very different solutions.

The first park, on the edge of a "rough" housing estate, would be built in an allotment owned by a local community group and fenced in so that it could be securely locked out of hours. Unsightly at it's borders with the industrial fencing, the play area was built via dogged determination from the local champion to ensure that local kids got what they wanted in that land.

This first park was an example of ruthless determination on the part of the local parents and adults, with the architects wanting to build on the land and extensions of it to cater for new homes...perhaps even eco-homes! The residents were having none of it, and despite having their collated design quickly shelved they were eventually involved at every stage of the building a strange "metal forest" play area.

The result is something utterly ghastly, impersonal, unwelcoming and not befitting of a former mining town...in my opinion, but I'm not the one needing to be impressed. The reality is that the kids do play in it, lots, and more than that it is saved from vandalism by garish gates and fences. The community have taken the situation they're in on the west side of the town by the scruff of the neck, and god help anyone that tries to ruin what they've achieved.

Similarly, on the other side of town, another park is being built on public land. This time it's much larger in it's scope but not much larger in budget. Both this and the park across town receive a mere £80k to be completed. The architect for this build is much more open to community interaction and ownership in this case and doesn't like the idea of a walled in play area. The result is a much more park-like park, open 24 hours a day, with activities and areas not only suggested and designed by the local kids but in some cases actually built by them.

I was asking myself in this case when it would be that the older teenagers would ruin everything, as for all of it's glory the £80k park could still only be called a children's play area. Unfortunately, after the second burning down of the local high school in 3 years, the problems really started to strike hard. The community, however, are the real success in this instance. Invigorated by the park's existence they actually have something to fight for, something to be proud of and to instil pride in for their kids. They soon get their families and local residents mucking in to fix damage, to clean up graffiti, and with a little more sense even manage to recognise that without borders this area at least needs community patrols to stave off miscreants.

The beauty of this is that it works. You don't need to have a vigilante-esque grip over the local amenities, merely a consideration for them...a care and a vested interest. From this they get other rewards, a more "grown up" play area for older teenagers built as an extension to recognise their needs as well as that of younger kids. I wonder how long it will be until this sense of ownership washes away and the dereliction sets in, but with the park actually physically built by pre-teens of which at least some must remain in the area...surely it can't be too much to hope that such ownership is now ingrained in the local community for generations to come.

The third park was in a small village to the North of Castleford's town, New Fryston. A population of just 255 reside there, an ex mining community that is slowly dying. The government's Quango, English Parnerships, appoints an astonishing £1mil to the area to regenerate it with a park area to entice new developers in to the area. What is achieved is terrible, divisiveness to the extreme the local community is split between those that want to see the village prosper and those that fear change. Unfortunately it is those that fear change that seem to come off most vindicated as their concerns are ignored in the face of an almost dictatorial architect/designer who's idea of public consultation is "choose one of these three". Now they are lumped with a park facing the wrong way (towards potential newly developed land, away from the old residents), with a cairn like statue no-one likes, and an overgrown mess of land that all in all looks entirely out of keeping with what is a very rural ex-mining community.

I guess this begs the question, how many people is too few people for the government and their Quango's to listen to? The 255 people of New Fryston clearly didn't matter when the government allocated their money to what looks like a pointless and costly exercise in show boating, one person asking why £1mil was spent on this when no-one has yet got around to piping gas in to the area. Quite astute, I'd say, given the government supposedly wants developers to come in to this area and...well...develop.

Of all the parks the final one is the biggest failure, the local people hate it, the local council abandon it, and as yet it seems that development in the area is strangely lacking. What the people of New Fryston seem to have is an award winning waste of money on their doorstep as fears of recession loom. While the rest of the town gets architects that work on tight budgets and deliver what the local community needs, this small village on the edge of Castleford is appointed a stuck-up architect/designer and never actually achieves what it says it always wanted...a proper community centre.

If this wasn't enough evidence that top down initiatives, with bureaucrats seeking international recognition through awards, isn't the way to regenerate areas, instil local pride and generally better the community...well, I don't know what is.