Adventure playgrounds have been closed after a nine-year-old boy was seriously injured on a piece of equipment.

Crawley Borough Council has closed four playgrounds in the town following the incident in Cherry Lane Adventure Playground in Cherry Lane, Langley Green, Crawley, on Monday afternoon.

A nine-year-old boy, who is believed to come from Ifield, Crawley, was airlifted to St George’s Hospital in South London, after injuring his head on a swing-style piece of equipment.

Sussex Police cordoned off the scene following the incident and the boy is understood to still be in hospital.


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Now similar playgrounds to Cherry Lane have been closed: Waterlea in Furnace Green, Millpond in Bewbush and Creasys Drive in Broadfield, are all shut.

All equipment similar to that which the boy fell from will be removed from the playgrounds and inspections will be carried |out.

A Crawley Borough Council spokeswoman said: “We are sorry about the accident and we have passed on our thoughts to the boy and his family; we wish him a full recovery and are available to speak with them whenever they are ready.

“All four adventure playgrounds are closed to open access play while we assess all items of equipment.

“As a precautionary measure we will be removing all similarly constructed equipment from our adventure playgrounds.

“We will also begin a general condition survey of every piece of wooden play equipment across all four playgrounds shortly, regardless of how they are constructed. This will include testing the timbers and ground conditions.

“We carry out a visual daily check of all our adventure playground equipment, which is also recorded; our trained team of maintenance inspectors carry out checks every three months and the Royal Society of the Prevention of Accidents |(RoSPA) checks the play equipment annually.

“RoSPA had carried out their checks at Cherry Lane Adventure Playground nine weeks ago and deemed the equipment as low-risk and safe to use.

“The Health and Safety Executive has completed its inspection and will not be taking any enforcement action.

“We will continue to work with Sussex Police to assist them with their investigation and establish exactly what happened.”