Witless Bay takes next step in playground upgrade

The Town of Witless Bay held a special meeting Tuesday, June 21 to approve a tender for site work for playground upgrades.

“The whole purpose, or the primary purpose, of calling this meeting was to get this tender awarded because we are on a tight deadline to have the new playground equipment installed, and we need to site prep,” said councillor Ralph Carey.

Carey moved that council accept Harbour Construction’s quote of $15,956 (HST included) for site work and equipment installation. Councillor Jacob Hayden seconded the motion.

“We need to get this done to have our playground equipment installed,” said Carey. “It’s been sitting in storage for, I don’t know how many months, but too many months.”

Council had issued the tender for Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA) funded site work at the playground/ballfield during a special public meeting of June 1.

ACOA announced the $120,000 in funding in February.

The money, said ACOA, is to be used to “enhance outdoor space to improve accessibility and safety and increase recreational opportunities for residents and visitors.” As part of the funding, upgrades include new playground equipment, ballfield renovations and enhancements of the trail system.

During that same public council meeting, which lasted just under six minutes in total, council approved two Crown land applications for Dean’s Road and a commercial development application for a new childcare centre at 294 Southern Shore Highway.

Witless Bay called yet another special meeting for June 28, with one of the items up for discussion being the awarding of the ballfield tender.

The Irish Loop Post reached out to two members of town staff, as well as Mayor Trevor Croft, and Deputy Mayor Lorna Yard for details of the decision Tuesday night, and tried the Town Hall again on Wednesday morning, but received no response by deadline.