Elford Community Park playground reopens after £75,000

The rebuilt playground at Elford Community Park is open, and the parish council has asked for a formal reopening event at the beginning of September. Its draft minutes for 13 July record that a soft opening had already been held and “was considered a success”. No date for the formal event has been fixed in the council’s published papers.

The work cost more than the £75,000 headline. Lichfield District Council announced on 7 August that its £75,000 grant to Elford Parish Council, drawn from the Community Infrastructure Levy strategic fund, was matched by £35,000 from Tarmac, with further money from the parish council itself including third-party contributions and its Playground Earmarked Reserve.

The equipment it replaced was mostly timber and had been in the ground for around 24 years. Alongside new play equipment, the site has a new surface, landscaping and wider improvements. Contractors started on 8 June 2026, according to the parish council’s approved minutes for that month, which also record that a piece of old equipment a resident had asked to reuse was removed during site clearance and is no longer available.

Andy Payne, chairman of Elford Parish Council, said the previous playground “had been a much-loved part of the village for many years, but it was becoming increasingly difficult to maintain and needed significant investment”.

What is still being paid for

The July meeting signed off a second stage of smaller works, each with a ceiling attached: up to £250 for hard-wearing shrubs for the playground beds, up to £300 for maintenance equipment, and up to £1,200 for a replacement shed including installation. The council also agreed to fund repointing of the stone circle in the playground, and asked for a quotation to replace the playground information boards. Councillors noted a £302 transfer in June to cover an electrical repair on the site.

Signage acknowledging the contributions from Tarmac and Lichfield District Council has been listed for a future meeting.

Where the £75,000 came from

The grant is not council tax money. It comes from the Community Infrastructure Levy, a charge on new development that Lichfield District Council has levied since 13 June 2016. The council’s most recent Infrastructure Funding Statement shows Elford Community Park was allocated its £75,000 on 11 February 2025, alongside six other schemes approved the same day.

That round came to £1,487,888.33 and was dominated by one project:

• Burntwood Health Centre, £1,152,110
• Lichfield and Hatherton Canal restoration, Tamworth Road phase 2, £200,000
• Elford Community Park, £75,000
• Alrewas multi-use games area, £45,000
• Whittington Common Lane yellow lines, £7,000
• Drayton Bassett radar speed awareness signage, £5,890
• Cannock Chase Special Area of Conservation, £2,888.33

Elford’s playground is one of the first of that round to reach residents. When the statement was published, the position at 31 March 2025 was that the Elford project was still at the stage of confirming quotes, the Burntwood Health Centre money was awaiting a planning application, and the Drayton Bassett and Whittington allocations were in the same position. A separate £600,000 allocated to Streethay Community Centre in February 2022 was recorded as “Project not started”.

£4.2m collected, £900,000 spent

The wider picture in the same document is that the levy raises money considerably faster than the district spends it. Lichfield District Council received £5,537,450.17 in total levy payments between 13 June 2016 and 31 March 2025, of which £1,045,099.93 came in during 2024/25 alone.

Of that total, £4,198,688.90 was retained for strategic infrastructure. The statement records £3,058,115.84 as allocated, £902,538.64 as actually spent, and £238,034.43 as unallocated at 31 March 2025. Those three figures add up to the £4.2m collected, so roughly £1 in every £5 of the strategic levy had actually been spent after nearly nine years of charging.

Some of the rest has come back out again. Two earlier allocations, £260,000 for Falkland Road and the Fosseway canal walk and £35,000 for the canal trust’s St Johns community link, were withdrawn in November 2023.

Elford’s own share is much smaller

Parish councils get a slice of the levy raised in their area to spend as they choose: 15% normally, rising to 25% where a neighbourhood plan has been adopted. Elford adopted its plan on 15 January 2019, so it receives the higher rate.

That still produced £3,361.62 for the parish across 2024/25. The £75,000 for the playground came from the district’s strategic pot rather than the village’s own share, which is the difference between a scheme this size happening and not happening. By comparison, Lichfield city received £44,051.97 in neighbourhood levy that year and Curborough, Elmhurst, Farewell and Chorley £32,700, out of £114,890.77 passed to all parishes.

What it means for you

The playground is open now, and if you want the ceremony rather than the slide, watch the parish council’s agendas for a date at the beginning of September. Nothing has been published yet.

For any village group looking at a project of its own, the route Elford took is the one to copy: a strategic levy bid to the district council, matched with money from a local business and the parish’s own earmarked reserve. One limit is worth knowing first: strategic levy money can only be allocated to the types of infrastructure on the council’s Infrastructure List, which is reviewed each year before cabinet approves it.

It is also worth knowing that the money follows development. The levy is charged on new building, so the villages seeing the most construction generate the most to bid against. You can see what is being applied for near you on our Lichfield planning applications page, and what is already open across the district in our guide to things to do in Lichfield.