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Maddingley Park Adventure Playground

The Maddingley Park Adventure Playground was a community project that took required strong community participation and support. The aim was to build a 2300 meter square playground for children to enjoy in the picturesque park in Bacchus Marsh. David was volunteered to be the OHS Coordinator on the committee, that’s right I did say volunteered, but was happy to take on the task.

The construction required the equivalent of 13 house lots of timber, 400 cubic meters of soft fall and had up to 1900 volunteers on site over the period of construction. Children were excluded from there and daycare facilities were established so that parents could participate with 170 children being looked after by childcare professionals at the height of the construction.

All volunteers on-site were required to wear a nametag at all times which were colour coded to provide an indication of whether they were skilled or unskilled (could use power tools, machines etc). The name tags also had a bar code and each time a person arrived or left the site they were scanned allowing coordinators to know how many people were on site and most importantly how many meals were required.

Managing safety was a challenge with a team dedicated to this role, every person entering the site underwent an induction with a strong focus on the site risks. During the construction phase there were many challenges with volunteers who had never been on a construction site previously working in close proximity to plant which presented a challenge to manage. At the height of construction there were up to 500 volunteers on site at one time and towards the end of construction injuries started to increase. PPE was provided for all volunteers with key issues identified including fall, eye, hearing and dust protection. Over the six days a total of 47 minor injuries were attended with no serious incidents occurring.

The project was only achieved through good planning and community spirit. Without the community volunteers the playground would not have been built, overall it provided a diversity of challenges for safety based on varied life experience, unknown capacities and capabilities, however expectations were managed. It showed that safety can and needs to be managed on community projects such as this and that if planned right great outcomes will follow.