Bingham Park in Sheffield has been a much-loved space enjoyed by generations. It has plenty of rolling green grass hills for picnics with a beautiful view across the city, paths that you can cycle on and the tennis courts that have seen many a game over the years.
Sadly, over time the tennis courts fell into disrepair and needed some new life. After consulting with the community, the Bingham Park Community Group made plans to partner with Netball England, Basketball England, and SkateboardGB to convert the derelict old tennis courts into a netball/basketball court, a mini skateboard park, and a Children’s scooter and cycle track.
The refurbishment was funded by the Bingham Park Community Group (BPCG) which is entirely run by 15 skilled and committed volunteers from the local community. It operates as a part of the charity Friends of Porter Valley (FoPV). Their crowdfunding was a huge success receiving donations from the local community and organisations like Sheffield Town Trust, JG Graves Foundation, and Henry Boot. They raised an incredible £7,872 to refurbish the park.
Here at Lightmain we were delighted when Sheffield City Council (SCC) asked us to be involved with this project. This was the perfect spot for the Lightmain Dual Basketball and Netball Rotating Posts. These are a totally unique product and are exclusively designed and manufactured by Lightmain. They unlock the space in a new way allowing the community to play a variety of games in the same court (which can be especially useful when space is limited).
For our involvement in this project, we refurbished the whole court right down to the groundworks and tarmac resurfacing. We then installed the new fencing, gate and Netball/Basketball posts and finally completed it with the line and court painting.
The finished results look fantastic and really bring the space in line with the aesthetic of the rest of the park.
Described as soon to be Sheffield’s ‘best little park’ in an article in the Sheffield Star, the revamped courts were re-opened to the public on the 9th of July 2022 in a ceremony where Sheffield’s Lord Mayor Sioned-Mair Richards sported her trainers to officially open the new court!
It was a fantastic day with live music, cakes, ribbon cutting and sunshine, the Lord Mayor even played a few rounds of Basketball with some local children. Lightmain’s Marketing Manager Alyssia attended the ceremony to see the finished result for herself and to speak to the community about the project.
When asked what he thought about the new basketball/netball posts volunteer Michael said:
“I think it’s great, I think it’s incredibly popular. If you come down any evening in the week after school there are loads of kids playing on it, sometimes there are 4 different games going on at the same time! It’s been a massive success, we’ve had people telling us via the Facebook group how popular it is, my neighbours son comes down every week to use it. It’s been a huge thing and made a massive difference to the park.”
– Michael Jones – Volunteer for the Bingham Park Community Group
If you would like to find out how Lightmain can breathe life into your parks and outdoor sports areas, then give us a call at 0114 282 1259 or drop us an email at info@lightmain.co.uk we would love to hear from you.
