TWO village play areas have been transformed following a £35,000 investment.

Children in the Whicham Valley are enjoying two new play areas in Silecroft and Kirksanton after the parish council secured thousands of pounds worth of funding.

The council took the decision to close the play areas after a recent inspection highlighted them as being unsafe, so councillors embarked on a campaign to reopen the popular sites.

Cllr Victoria Bradley, who has worked on the project for the past few months, is delighted by the outcome.

She said: "Before there was an old wooden frame and at our last inspection it was deemed unsafe so we had to take everything out. There was nothing left.

"Then Tesco's Bags for Life came out and we got the £12,000 which enabled us to get a new set of swings and slide unit for Silecroft."

The Bags for Life campaign has been introduced by supermarket giant, Tesco, which collects together the money from plastic bag charges.

Each five pence charge is put aside into a pot of money which is then distributed out to three local causes.

Customers are then asked to vote for their favourite cause, which will be awarded £12,000.

The runners up will also receive £10,000 and £8,000. Mrs Bradley said: "Without that money we wouldn't have been able to those two pieces of equipment or keep the park open.

"It's such a good scheme. We were working on getting the £8,000 but we got the full £12,000.

"It's good to know our five pence carrier bag charges are being put to good use."

Maxine Lawford, community champion for Tesco in Millom, was thrilled to see the play area back in action.

She said: "It looked fabulous and it's a fantastic playground for the community and visitors as well.

"It's a great asset to the local community and it's such a lovely play area."

The scheme is set to continue for the foreseeable future and Mrs Lawford is eager to encourage as many people as people to apply.

She said: "If there's funding for our local area and it's available then let's not lose the chance to do something with that money.

"Customers are spending money on these bags and we can put that back into the local community."

In addition to the improvements made to Silecroft play area, the council enlisted the support of CGP Books, based in Broughton, to carry out much-needed improvements to Kirksanton playground, bringing the total investment up to £35,000.

Mrs Bradley said: "Both were really not good enough.

"No-one wanted to use them.

"Without the money from CGP or Tesco we would have struggled to improve them."

Read more:

Community projects set to benefit from cash funding

Plastic bags raise £12,000 for Silecroft children's play area

Playgrounds, allotments and public toilets face the axe as Barrow council looks to save £2.37m