New swings, a rebuilt climbing frame and a restored pond are open at Shaftesbury Park in Plaistow, paid for with a £75,000 Veolia grant and £23,000 of jubilee parks money.

The rebuilt play area at Shaftesbury Park in Plaistow is open, with a fortnight of the school holidays still to run, after a £105,000 scheme that also restored the park’s pond. The council confirmed the opening on 12 August, with the Mayor of Bromley, Councillor Christine Harris, doing the honours alongside pupils from Burnt Ash Primary School.

The playground has new toddler and junior swings, a replacement toddler and junior climbing frame and slide, other equipment upgraded and new seating. The pond has been restored to improve habitat and biodiversity, and the council says Burnt Ash Primary will be able to use it as an outdoor learning resource.

Where the money came from

The £105,000 total was assembled from three sources rather than one. A grant of £75,000 came from the Veolia Environmental Trust through the Landfill Communities Fund, a scheme that channels a slice of landfill tax into projects near landfill sites. The trust states on its own site that Veolia has contributed £115 million since it was established, funding more than 2,971 grants.

A further £23,000 came from Bromley’s Platinum Jubilee Parks Fund, the £1m pot the council opened for community-led green space projects, offering up to £40,000 for each ward with a ceiling of £20,000 for each proposal. Shaftesbury Park’s £23,000 is above that per-proposal ceiling, and the council’s announcement does not say whether the park drew on more than one award. The fund closed to applications on 10 March 2025, by which point more than 50 projects had been agreed across the borough’s parks and 37 finished. The balance of the Shaftesbury Park bill, £7,000 once the two named grants are deducted from the £105,000 total, came from section 106 money, the contributions developers pay towards local infrastructure as a condition of planning permission. The council did not publish that share separately.

“This is another example of great partnership work making a difference,” Cllr Harris said, thanking Veolia and the school community. Andrew Brown, executive director of the Veolia Environmental Trust, said it was “always heartening to see environmentalists of all ages taking action to improve their local areas”.

Bar showing the £105,000 Shaftesbury Park scheme split into a £75,000 Veolia Environmental Trust grant, £23,000 from Bromley's Platinum Jubilee Parks Fund and the remainder from section 106 developer contributions
Chart by Bromley Online, from the London Borough of Bromley's announcement of 12 August 2026.

Finding it

Shaftesbury Park is on Valeswood Road, BR1 4QZ, in Plaistow ward, in the streets between Burnt Ash Lane and Downham. The council’s park record lists a children’s play area and a multi-use court; opening hours for Bromley’s parks are published at bromley.gov.uk/parksopeningtimes.

What it means for you

If you are within walking distance, this is a free thing to do in the last stretch of the summer holidays, and the equipment is new rather than patched up. Burnt Ash Primary School is on Rangefield Road, about 90 metres from the park by postcode centroid, so expect the pond to be busy with school groups once term restarts.

If you want the same for your own local park, the route has changed. The Platinum Jubilee Parks Fund that paid part of this bill is closed, so the live options are the Veolia Environmental Trust’s own grant rounds, which are open to community groups near qualifying sites, and section 106 money, which is tied to development. That second route is worth understanding if a scheme is proposed near you: the contributions attached to a planning permission are set when the application is decided, which is one practical reason to read what is in front of the council. Our Bromley planning applications page explains how to find and comment on live applications in the borough.

More broadly, this is what park spending in Bromley currently looks like: modest sums, assembled from several pots, one playground at a time. Shaftesbury Park needed a national landfill tax scheme, a jubilee fund that has since closed and a developer contribution to fund a set of swings, a climbing frame, some benches and a pond.

Sources