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Play is popping up in more places and new ways across Howick - and it’s all about making play ‘an everywhere activity’.
The Howick Local Board has adopted its 2025 Play Plan, a fresh, fun approach to making sure everyone, no matter their age or ability, has plenty of chances to play. Whether that’s at the park, outside school, or in the neighbourhood, play is being made more accessible and inclusive across the board.
The plan helps guide future investment in play – not just in playgrounds, but across the wider community, based on the belief that play should be part of everyday life, everywhere.
The Howick Local Board already supports play through great playgrounds, some with accessible and wheeled play features.
The 2023 Howick Local Board plan also highlights the need for a sensory play space to make play even more inclusive. Safe swimming beaches and local libraries offer playful, welcoming spaces for tamariki and the wider community.
Chair Damian Light says, “We’re lucky to have so many great open spaces across the Howick area. As our population continues to grow, we remain committed to delivering facilities and activities across our parks network to suit people of diverse demographics and abilities. Making this work with our constrained budgets means we need to think differently, and this Play Plan provides us with options to be creative and cost effective in providing play opportunities for all.”
What's in the plan?
The plan offers a wide range of options for the local board to incorporate wider play activations, such as:
- Playful street art
- Playful installations
- Installed adventurous nature spaces
- On-site adventurous nature spaces
- StoryWalks
Next steps
The local board’s next step is to decide which play ideas can be included in their action plan, this is the plan that turns local priorities into real projects in the community, showing what’s happening, where, and when.
As part of the local board's commitment to delivering these new opportunities, the Board has allocated $15,000 in its work programme for July 2025 to June 2026 to start implementing the Play Plan.
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