Crawley Play Service

Crawley Borough Council Play Service aims to promote play and provide for the play needs of children in Crawley.

Our work falls into four main areas:

• Open Access play work Tuesday, Wednesdays, and Thursdays after school and everyday in the holidays. Our adventure playgrounds are open free of charge for children between six and 18 years of age, who once registered are free to come and go as they please. We welcome parents and carers at these free sessions. For more information please view the Open Access page .
• Playcare/childcare sessions during school holidays, you can pre-book your child or children onto the play care scheme.
• Outreach play work / group bookings working in the community, publicising the work of Crawley Play Service. Delivering training or support, working with schools and community groups. To find out how to book a visit or how we can help your group/school please see the Outreach Playwork page .
• Managing Parties – parties can be held at all four of our adventure playgrounds, Saturdays and Sundays throughout the year, exclusive use of the whole playground for up to 100 young people. Please view the Parties page for more information.

We run the Crawley Play Service from our four adventure playgrounds which have plenty of indoor and outdoor play space. Indoors you will find pool and table tennis tables, computer games and well-equipped art and craft areas. Outside you will find family picnic areas and places for toddlers to play as well as larger structures for older children with zip lines and climbing walls, net walkways, swings and ground level trampolines. All sites have areas for football, basketball and some have go-karts.

We also have space for gardening, camp building, playing games, chatting with friends or just hanging out. Children play outside even in bad weather and often get dirty – old clothes are a good idea!

Children and young people can enjoy the freedom to play, making choices and maybe even take a risk or two in the safety of the playground.

There is lots of time and space to be creative and meet friends or make new ones.

We have qualified play workers on site who encourage children and young people to get the best out of their visit.

Children come from different backgrounds and have a range of abilities, needs and ages. They tell us a lot about what is going on, who is around and what they are doing, and also who is not having such a good time. We plan our work around our observations and feedback from the children and young people.

Each site has a wish list of items they would love you to bring along when you visit to help make life more playful, to see the lists and to find out more about each adventure playground follow the links below.

• Cherry Lane Adventure Playground
• Creasys Drive Adventure Playground
• Millpond Adventure Playground
• Waterlea Adventure Playground

Find out more about what the play service has to offer by viewing the play service leaflet .