Albany Drive Reserve playspace
Pocket-level playspace
Upgrading your playgrounds
Play is important for children’s physical, cognitive, social, emotional and sensory development. Through play, important life skills are learnt using interaction, risk-taking, imagination, socialising and self-expression. Playing allows children to learn about themselves and others.
The Monash Playground and Playspace Strategy 2025-2035 outlines the playground priorities for the redevelopment of our 139 playgrounds to meet the needs, and where possible, the expectations of families in Monash.
The prioritisation of upgrades is based on advice from the most recent independent safety and condition audit for all Monash playgrounds.
Council’s playground upgrade process is staged over two years, with a comprehensive community consultation and design phase to occur throughout 2024-25, and construction to be undertaken in 2025-26.
How playgrounds are classified
Part of our strategy is to classify playgrounds to help us plan for our parks and reserves, including playground design and budget.
District and regional playgrounds are large and individually designed playgrounds. District playgrounds service an area around 2.5 kms away, and regional playgrounds are for the whole municipality. Both have a full range of supporting amenities, catering for all abilities; i.e. toilets, drinking fountains, shelter, seating, barbecues, bins, off street parking, tables, seats, etc. The expectation is that users are prepared to drive up 10kms to these parks and/or playspaces and would spend at least 2 hours per visit.
Top image: Galbally Reserve, Hughesdale (Regional playspace)
Bottom image: Valley Conservation Reserve, Mount Waverley (District playspace)
Medium sized playgrounds with 8-12 play pieces, catering for a range of age groups and abilities. They serve neighbourhoods up to 1 kilometre away with the expectation that users could spend up to two hours per visit. They would have a picnic table, water fountain and a bin, but do not normally have toilets, shelters or barbecues.
Image: Bayview (Madison Court) Reserve, Mount Waverley
Small playgrounds designed to cater for residents living within 500 metres. These playgrounds include 5 to 8 items of play equipment for younger age groups up to primary school age. Local playgrounds are usually only used by residents from nearby streets who would spend up to an hour per visit. Amenities are limited to bench seating and accessibility features.
Image: Greville Street Reserve, Huntingdale
Very small playgrounds with three to five pieces of play equipment. Usually used by toddlers and pre-schoolers in the immediate vicinity and accessed by foot.
Image: Rivett Crescent Reserve, Mulgrave
Projects to be constructed in 2025/26
Feedback Summary Reports have been published for the below four playspaces.
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Winbourne Road Reserve playspace
Pocket-level playspace
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Queens Parade Reserve playspace
Local-level playspace
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Gladeswood Reserve playspace
District-level playspace
A successful playground is defined by the amount of usage it gets. Children come back time after time to a playground that can sustain their interest – and this means designing playspaces to delight, entertain and engage them.
Similar sized equipment or a limited choice of activities will not meet all their developmental needs and not result in frequent return visits. Hence it is important to deliver a diversity of opportunities across a range of playspaces as no one site can realistically deliver on all of these developmental needs for all stages of a child’s growth.
