Blofield Park: The Past, The Present and The Future
The Vision
The Past
The new Community Hub and Playpark has been a long time in the making. It has taken years to get off the ground and has been the most complex project Blofield Parish Council has ever undertaken, involving numerous hours / weeks of clerk time and many many hours of councillor time for meetings, on site discussions and engaging with professional bodies. As councillors are all volunteers we hope our efforts, and those of the clerks to bring this amazing facility to the parish have not been in vain!
As part of the Neighbourhood Plan process and subsequent Community Engagement event it was identified that local parishioners wanted a new facility in the Parish. This led to the Parish Council taking the decision to pool all the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) funds for this once in a lifetime opportunity to construct the Community Hub.
Due to the A47 dualling works, National Highways invited impacted Parish Councils to apply for funding from their social value fund. This took several years of refinement and iterative applications resulting in a successful award in 2024. This funding allowed for provision of new play equipment at the Margaret Harker Hall, Heathlands and what has now become Blofield Park.
A condition was applied by National Highways which meant the play equipment had to be installed on site in 2024 when Blofield Primary School was still at the “old school site”. This meant that the play equipment could not be opened up for public use until after the school had moved to the new site and the land transferred from Norfolk County Council to Blofield Parish Council.
Although the school moved to the new building in April 2025, legal delays with Norfolk County Council and UK Power Networks meant that the land on which the play equipment is located on was not transferred to the Parish Council until May 2026 – earlier this year !
The outline of what has now become Parish Council owned land is outlined in blue below, encompassing the “old” Year 6 external classroom, hardstanding, field and forest school area.
Upon taking ownership of the land and play equipment, the Parish Council had to ensure that the area was safe for public use. This involved conducting ground investigations, tree surveys, play equipment inspections, fencing off forest school, bringing in additional top soil to improve ground conditions etc. This all took time.
We were aware that it would be such a shame for a fantastic play park to be out of reach for local residents so we have done everything we can to quietly launch the opening of the play park for the summer holiday period. We intentionally kept it low key and relied on word of mouth through the local community due to there being no parking facilities.
Unfortunately, the play park received some fantastic publicity, which although is great to see children and families using the equipment every day, it had the unintended byproduct of dramatically increasing visitor numbers to the park from outside Blofield, which considering there is no parking available caused chaos in the immediate area and for local residents.
The Parish Council contacted the publicists of the Facebook and Instagram posts to request that they let their followers know that there is no parking and that continued inconsiderate car parking could result in the early closure of the play park. We also placed additional signage online and around the site to encourage considerate use as well as involving the police to conduct additional patrols in the area.
The park has been really busy which has been great to see so many families enjoying the facility in what has been an exceptional summer !
The park will close at the end of the Summer holidays as construction on the new Community Hub is due to commence at the beginning of September 2026.
The Present:
Following a thorough tender process with support from REAL Consulting and Big Sky Living, Blofield Parish Council will be shortly appointing a principle contractor to build and landscape the new community hub, car park and convert the old Year 6 classroom to a dedicated Preschool facility.
Construction work is due to commence shortly and you will be able to follow the progress of the development - watch this page for further news!
The Future:
When completed, the community hub will provide
• Dedicated Preschool facility with Forest School
• Parish office for the clerks to work from
• Large hall that can be hired to local user groups and sizeable enough for major events
• Kitchen facilities
• Café
• Car Parking spaces for 57 vehicles including dedicated disabled parking spaces
• Bike stands
• And what has been labelled, the best Play Park in Norfolk.
This is a very exciting project that will benefit parishioners and others for many years to come.
There will be employment and volunteering opportunities so if you would like to be involved with any aspects of the hub or other facilities within the Parish, please contact the Parish Clerk on clerk@blofield-pc.gov.uk for more details.
Thank you for your patience – it will be worth it.
Community Hub and Preschool Layout Plans
