Inclusivity is at the heart of a new sensory park in Ballina

A brand new sensory park in Ballina will be open by the end of the summer. It will feature both an interactive zone, with musical equipment, and a relaxation zone, with spaces to regulate.

It is hoped that people will be able to start using the park in the coming weeks and the official launch will be early in the new year, after a water feature is completed.

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Locals in Ballina will have noticed the burst of colour behind the hoardings in Tom Ruane Park in the last couple of months as the planting has really brought the sensory garden to life.

Mayo GAA footballer Padraig O’Hora is one of the driving forces behind the project and he outlines the vision for the park.

“The park is supposed to do two things: it's supposed to engage, interact, and have that play aspect. And then it's also supposed to be a place for regulation, relaxation therapy. The design is so that you enter the park and you go right for engagement, interaction, play and you go left for serenity, peacefulness, therapy. And they all come together,” the Ballina native tells The Mayo News.

The sensory park is located directly beside the playground in the main park in Ballina, with easy access to parking.

“We fought tooth and nail to make sure it went here,” O’Hora explains that the whole purpose of the project was inclusion so having it beside the already existing playground was vital.

“The whole purpose of this project was inclusion. You will have a fully interactive, immersive space here, right beside the playground. The crossover is there and there should be crossover play, crossover education, kids learning off each other, parents learning off each other.”

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By having the sensory park beside the playground, families who may have children who are neurodivergent as well as siblings who are neurotypical don’t have to compromise when deciding what to do at the weekend.

“Most households that we work with will have a young person or an adult with intellectual disability or physical challenge alongside their siblings who do or don't. I think it's going to be the first place in the west, that is an outdoor amenity that has access for absolutely everybody. It's gonna be class.”

Ryan Cawley, another one of the driving forces behind the project, agrees and says that it’s lovely that families can “come down to the same park and enjoy the same amenity, rather than going off in two separate cars and all the work that entails. So the whole idea there is just keep it all tight together.”

The fact the two amenities are within eyesight of one another is hugely important for both O’Hora and Cawley.

The location also allows the park to use the serenity of the water from the River Moy behind it and the shade from the trees in the park.

The design of the planting will ensure that there will be colour in the sensory park throughout the twelve months of the year.

The colouring also matches the different aims of the park, as O’Hora demonstrates:

“In the quiet and serene and relaxed spaces the colours are your purples and blues. Over the far side reds and oranges should explode with colour, because you want the interaction. You want your yellows, your blues, your reds, your bright colours and like that's been nurtured throughout the whole park too.”

Consultation

Cawley is quick to praise the work of architect Kevin Loftus, who “always incorporated all the voices from the community groups and focus groups in the design.”

In keeping with the core focus on inclusivity, multiple focus groups were held and direct changes to the design were the result.

“This is not a Flow Community project, it's not Ballina community, it's not even Ballina as a town, it's a project designed by absolutely everybody,” O’Hora says.

“With all the will in the world, we can't see the world through an autistic child's eyes. We can’t see the world through a wheelchair user's eyes. So instead of pretending we can, we went directly to the source. Directly to those people that have lived experience all their lives, parents, people that really know what they're talking about, and they've come back and fed all the information, and that's why the park is the way it is. And hopefully that pays dividends in the long run, I really think it will.”

One example that Ryan recalls is a student from St Muredach's College in Ballina who made a phenomenal suggestion around signage and fencing, which they incorporated into the design.

“You just don’t know where the nuggets of information are going to come from,” O’Hora agrees and shares that ‘a simple change in design that we hadn’t even looked at at the time’ came about after an observation from a fifth class student in nearby Breaffy National School. O’Hora was speaking in the school about the park when the eleven year old talked about colouring and regulation.

Community fundraising

The initial seed of an idea for the park came as a result of Covid. Both Ryan and Padraig had been running the inclusive Flow Community discos in Ballina.

“When Covid hit, we knew we couldn't do any of that stuff anymore, so we said we'd make a physical change in Ballina to support inclusivity,” O’Hora says.

They got an early indication of the support of the town in the project when they organised a “Freeze for February” fundraising event that raised €60,000.

“Ballina people, back in the depths of Covid when we weren't allowed to travel, helped us come together to initially get this thing off the ground. We decided after that that we weren't going back into the pockets of the people in Ballina because if we started tomorrow morning and asked them for the money to finish the park, they would give it to us. Of course they would. That's what people are like around here. But they shouldn't have to pay for this amenity. It should be something that's provided. I think people have probably given enough. We feel like they've given enough anyway, that we'll find the funding elsewhere, which we have,” said O’Hora.

Since then a number of different public grants, donations from local businesses, as well as philanthropic donations, have enabled the park to be built. The total cost of the park will exceed €250,000 when it is complete.

Template for other towns around Mayo

The blueprints for the park, including the equipment used, will be made publicly available for any other town that may want to build a similar amenity in the future.

“We can save you years of work, thousands of euros, because the plans are made and we'll open them to the public,” O’Hora says.

“It's taken a lot longer than I thought it would, but I think at the end of it, we're gonna have an amenity that you know will sustain itself, and will actually function the way you wanted to.”

Cawley also notes that the plans for the park are modular and so can be adapted quite easily for other parks and spaces depending on the local set-up.

When the sensory park is officially launched in the new year, there will no doubt be people in other towns throughout Mayo and the rest of the country who ask themselves, why don't we have a sensory park in our town?