Portsea Adventure Playground is transformed with vibrant graffiti mural

The team at Ecass, a community interest company, has completed another community project day to bring children together in Portsea in a bid to freshen up the Portsea Adventure Playground.

The play area is one of six adventure playgrounds, which are run by Portsmouth City Council's Play and Youth service, giving young Portsea children a safe and free place to play.

The manager of the playground, Jon Chapman, joined the Ecass team to hold a community project day on January 28, where children had the opportunity to explore their artistic skills and create a mural on the main wall of the play area.

Ecass manager John Ryder said: ‘I think if they have to do something for their own environment, they are more likely to look after it. It is all about inclusion.’

John praised the team at the playground, and he said: ‘I know how essential they are. These guys are legends, you can’t get better than what they do to help children and look after them every day. Some of these children don’t have homes or decent homes to go to, so we are going to roll out as many projects across the city as we can.’

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An initial competition was set up to receive ideas and designs of things that the youngsters would like to see created, and the end result bought all of these ideas together to create one piece of art.

All of the young people got involved in spray painting and creating the artwork, as did the special guests that were invited.

Portsmouth North MP Penny Mordaunt, the leader of the House of Commons, attended to show support for the community project and Clare Martin from Pompey in the Community donated tickets to the competition winner to watch Portsmouth play, as well as offering to put the winning designs on the big screen during the match.

Cllr Suzy Horton, Portsmouth City Council’s Lib Dem deputy leader and cabinet member for children, families and education, said: ‘Our priority is for young people to feel part of something and to encourage them to engage in future events like this one. That's why we built the playgrounds, for projects like this.’

Artform, the creative arts co-ordinator, put his creative flare onto the wall and helped all of the children get involved with putting their stamp on it.

Ecass works towards being able to offer free community activities, as well as signposting members of the community to clinics and support if they are experiencing things including landlord issues, domestic violence, debt, family court support, employability skills, confidence building, letter writing and more.

Councillor Darren Sanders said: ‘Our adventure playground here means a lot to people in Portsea and I'm so glad it's provided the space for this community event. Ecass has organised a brilliant showcase of creativity and free fun for local children and I hope we continue using these community spaces to do more of that in the future. I think the artwork looks fantastic.’