Local board makes plan for play on Waiheke

A bold new approach to play on Waiheke Island is set to reshape how the community experiences its parks, reserves, and public spaces.

The newly adopted 2025 Waiheke Play Plan lays out a strategic framework for fostering more inclusive, imaginative, and accessible play opportunities across the motu.

The Plan provides the Waiheke Local Board with guidance around how it can invest in play opportunities that go beyond conventional playgrounds to enhance the type of play spaces available, even with limited budgets.

“The Play Plan is a blueprint for the board to allocate its funds, from higher ticket playgrounds to the retention and use of recently fallen trees. This variety of different strategies to enhance play will contribute to maintaining and enhancing the island’s unique land for future generations of playful residents,” explains board chair Cath Handley

“Many of the opportunities that the Play Plan identifies are low cost, and require little intensive project management, which will enable the board to deliver more. Thank you to everyone who provided contributions to the creation of this plan, and we look forward to delivering some innovative and exciting play opportunities in the future.”

The plan offers a wide-range of options for the local board to incorporate wider play opportunities, such as:  

• Playful street art 
• Playful installations  
• On-site adventurous nature spaces (pruning or modifying a felled or fallen tree to use as a natural play element)
• Working with existing community partners (Waiheke Community Art Gallery, Artworks Theatre) to deliver more play-oriented activities
• Beach activation programme 
• Sidelines Play Box (Local board-branded sports boxes gifted to local sports clubs) 
• StoryWalks

With the plan now adopted, the board will decide which play components they can incorporated into their work programme, a guide that helps the board plan its budgets for the year ahead to deliver real projects that help the Waiheke community.