Families and children gathered at Park Gardens play area to celebrate the opening of a new sensory garden designed to help more children play, explore and feel comfortable outdoors.
The garden has been developed by Stroud Town Council, with guidance from Allsorts Gloucestershire and funding from Enovert Community Trust. It offers a calmer, more inclusive play space for children who may face barriers elsewhere in the park.
The sensory garden includes tactile wooden play equipment, blackboard panels with chalk for drawing, and a range of plants chosen to stimulate touch, smell, movement and sound. Together, these features create a space that supports different needs and ways of playing.
The launch event, organised and hosted by Allsorts Gloucestershire, gave families the opportunity to explore the space together and take part in a range of hands-on activities. These included creative modelling, a colourful parachute game, and a nature trail. Stroud College students will be using the materials from the day and their own work to create a new nature-based trail in the park, which should be installed this summer.
Children were also invited to help plant some of the sensory plants alongside Stroud Town Council’s Horticulture Ranger, Lawrie. This gave them the chance to be directly involved in shaping the garden and to learn how it will grow and change over time.
Jo Rosselli from Allsorts Gloucestershire said: “This sensory garden has been shaped by listening to families and thinking carefully about how spaces can include everyone. The launch event was a brilliant example of what happens when communities work together – children were able to play, explore and engage in ways that suit them, and that’s exactly what this space is here to provide.”
