Stanway Lakelands Centre Inclusive Play Park - Designed and delivered by Jupiter Play and Leisure

Our work results from collaboration, understanding a space, a community, and our client’s requirements. Whether it is a landscape-led approach to connecting children to nature or a playground project to activate a community, our diverse portfolio of play projects showcases the innovation we deliver every day.
Stanway Lakelands Centre Inclusive Play Park
Designing for Inclusivity
Stanway, Colchester - Installed 2023 - £244,000
Jupiter was commissioned to design and construct a new inclusive play facility on the Stanway Lakelands Community Centre site. The primary goal of the project was to design a long-lasting, fully inclusive play facility. We wanted to create a space where children with special educational needs, sensory needs, and those with mobility-related issues including wheelchair users, could play and interact alongside all other children.
Jupiter was commissioned to design and construct a new inclusive play facility on the site of the Stanway Lakelands Community Centre. The primary goal of the project was to design a long-lasting, fully inclusive play facility. We wanted to create a space where children with special educational needs, sensory needs, and those with mobility-related issues including wheelchair users, could play and interact alongside all other children.
The design provides a journey through the space, inspired by the adjacent community centre and country park, using landscaping, surfacing and planting elements to enhance this, and integrating sensory elements to stimulate sight, touch, smell and sound.
When a project is delivered with thought and care; balancing play value, community values, an engaging aesthetic, and consideration of ongoing revenue costs, it ensures a play space’s longevity and ongoing worth to the community.
With the combined expertise of Jupiter Play and Inclusive Play, we ensured the design was fully accessible and met the criteria for the Inclusive Play PiPA assessment. Discover the site for yourself below.
The Impact
The results have been overwhelmingly positive. Local SEND schools are travelling to Stanway Community Centre to use the park, and have highlighted how impactful it has been for their students to have play provision designed specifically to meet the needs of disabled and SEND students. One wheelchair user spoke of how the accessible design had meant he was to be able to play in the park with his son for the first time.
“I can look out the top window and see children from special needs schools and children in wheelchairs playing with local children from mainstream schools. There are no “isms” there are no judgements. We’ve managed to create a little microcosm where everyone is accepted.” Peter Dutch, CEO of Colchester Anti-Loo Roll Brigade
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