With the school summer holidays just around the corner, I hope kids across the country will be looking to spend days on end hanging about their local park (and not glued to their screens!).

We are so lucky in the parish of Hatfield to have easy access to several great parks; as well as St Albans Road East and Roe Hill in Hatfield, we also cover play parks in two picturesque settings alongside Lemsford Village Hall and next to Newgate Street cricket pitch.

You can find all these parks on our sports and leisure website at www.birchwoodleisure.co.uk, where each park also contains the relevant What3Words tag, so they can be found more easily if you have the app.

(Image: Larry Crofton)

Play and play parks are so important for our children. It’s where they can challenge themselves, make friends and simply have fun - and all children want to do this, regardless of their abilities and backgrounds.

That’s why at Hatfield Town Council, we are paying particular attention to how we can make our parks and play areas they best they can be, understanding adjustments we can make to ensure they are inclusive.

The ability to play isn’t just a nice thing to have, it is a fundamental right for children.

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (which the UK has signed up to) recognises the right of the child to rest and leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities appropriate to the age of the child and to participate freely in cultural life and the arts (Article 31).

That’s why I’m delighted that our investment into Millwards Park, in south of Hatfield, is delivering play equipment that is fun, accessible, and is supported by sensory elements and improved paths.

We have been posting regular updates on the town council socials in the past week, covering the work that has gone into this project, so please do visit and catch up with the work that we have been doing.

The new play area will be available to use from Wednesday, July 17, so we’re looking forward to having you visit and explore!

While we cannot provide such fantastic park facilities everywhere just yet, we will be looking to see how we can focus our investments to ensure we have better quality parks overall – potentially concentrating available funds into fewer, but higher quality play areas and creating more sensory and nature spaces.

However, we won’t do anything until we hear back from you - this summer, we will be encouraging children to tell us what they like about our parks and what they would like to see more of; so, watch this space.

Explore Hatfield:

Millwards Park can be accessed via multiple entrances (St Audrey’s Close, Cooks, Way Stanley Drive, and the South end of Millwards).

The new play park, picnic and nature area (Bee Street and Butterfly Avenue) are located to the south, closest to the Millwards entrance (What3Words tag rope.verse.ending).