The heavy lifting has been done on this project since 2014 when I agreed the site with the parish, with great thanks to them, and had the funding agreed and ring fenced by the Naas area committee. We have been effectively ready to go since then but it has been like pulling teeth trying to get it moved forward on the council side. I know the council are committed to the project but the delay means more summers going by when the local children could have had a playground at their disposal. We have a population spike in Sallins at the moment, there is no point putting in the playground when they are all grown up.

I believe the delay is down to resource issues in the council where the parks department is understaffed. The parks department do a great job and with so few resources, they are overworked and understaffed but the council need to get on top of this and provide the necessary manpower to match the workload. Full credit to the individuals that are there but we need more to get through the works program and prevent these type of projects from building up.

I raised this issue with the council executive team at a meeting last year and I have recently written to the Chief Executive of the council on the matter again. Sallins playground is one project which is essentially ready to go but can just not get out of the traps until resources are there to complete the designs and consultation etc. There are doubtless many more similar projects around the county which need to get into the pipeline. I am hopeful this logjam can be resolved speedily in order to get the people onto these projects now that finance is again available in recent years. The county needs amenities and we all need to prioritise the delivery of them.