A play area at Balsall Common Primary School has been transformed by 16 volunteers from HS2's main works contractor Balfour Beatty VINCI (BBV), their supply chain and HS2 Ltd.

Pupils now returning for the Autumn term are already enjoying a new open space play area and sensory garden, with new fencing, trellis, planting areas and play bark flooring providing a safe and accessible space.

The Balfour Beatty VINCI team worked over a period of two weeks to clear the existing unsafe play areas, including removing old play equipment, shredded ground rubber mulch, rotten railway sleepers and tree stumps. The overgrown vegetation was also cut back, including lifting the tree canopies and trimming hedge rows.

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They then set to work placing around 40 new sleepers for garden boarders, erecting new fence and trellis posts, laying down new bark chippings, painting fencing, creating planting areas, laying new stone to footpaths and to the chill-out area plus re-building of a new entrance gate.

Redditch-based specialist environment company Acorn trimmed the trees and bushes in the adventure play area and donated the specialist Play Area Bark, and Flannery Plant Hire, a company based in Sutton Coldfield, provided a Grab Lorry to carry out the works.