PARENTS have expressed their disappointment after the opening of a new children’s play park in Basingstoke.

The new children’s play area in War Memorial Park opened earlier this week following a £495,000 revamp by the borough council, which also went towards upgrading other facilities including the skate park.

The new park, which opened four months late, offers separate toddler and junior play spaces, connected by an all-weather surfaced path.

However, parents were left unimpressed and have expressed their disappointment to the council.

Mum Hannah Roberts described the park as a “waste of money” and criticised the council for separating the two parks, explaining: “The junior park is suitable for ages three plus so how does the mum with a three and one-year-old supervise both at the same time?”

She pointed out the opportunity to give Basingstoke a “destination park”, saying: “Instead, you’ve taken the lazy option and given us something that doesn’t offer the kids anything different to other parks in and around Basingstoke. No imagination has been used at all.”

She added: “What a shame that an opportunity to provide Basingstoke with something a bit special has been missed and we are left with this for the next 20 or so years.”

Lucy Bekatoros told Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council: “It is definitely not larger. As my local park I would visit the old one daily with the children. The old one was actually better.”

She criticised the council for failing to provide anywhere for children to balance and for removing the outdoor gym equipment for adults, adding: “One of the bonuses of the park was the large slide, now you’ve just got the generic slides that you can get anywhere. Compared to parks like Beggarwood this is extremely disappointing, there was so much potential with such a large space; being a town park we needed it bigger and better than before.”

Beccie Durrans said she and her children were “massively disappointed” when they visited this week, saying: “They both felt the park was better before.”

She described it as a “lost opportunity to provide a better more imaginative park”.

Samantha Wood said she was pleased to see “inclusive equipment” but added: “Considering the amount of space available this could have been better planned and executed.”

Lindsey Keki also thought the old park was better, and told the borough council: “All this time we have waited for this amazing park for our kids and this is what is to show for it.”

She said her two sons aged six and nine were disappointed, adding: “They actually asked to go to the park at Eastrop because they said it was boring here. The smaller park was too babyish for my six-year-old and the so-called older park has no imagination and the slide is tiny.”

Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council has been asked to comment.