Playground sponsor meeting 2024

During the playground sponsors' meeting in Hof town hall, almost 20 sponsors came together to discuss innovations and changes.

Playgrounds in Hof

The city of Hof has a total of 38 children's playgrounds, 11 football pitches and 6 streetball courts. Last year, the city of Hof invested a total of 367,500 euros in maintenance, including new playground signage. In addition, 495,000 euros were available for new facilities, with the majority of these funds going towards the large playgrounds at Untreusee and Bismarck Tower.

Mayor Eva Döhla: "Children's playgrounds are a special space - they are social meeting places. People from all population groups meet here. Playgrounds are therefore important places for neighborhood integration and social learning."

What should change?

During the annual playground sponsors' meeting at Hof Town Hall, almost 20 sponsors came together to discuss innovations and changes. The central point: the ageing Bismarck Tower and Untreusee children's playgrounds need to be renovated. A broad-based survey was carried out last year. The city of Hof was supported by the Hof Academy for Social Pedagogy. In the survey, the academy focused on the following questions:

How do children perceive their play space?
Where do they set their priorities?
Where do parents set their priorities?
How do they balance their own need for security with their children's need for new challenges?
And what action do professionals, who sometimes use the playgrounds with visitors to their facilities, see as necessary?

The city council compiled all the ideas in a list of criteria and put them out to public tender. Manufacturers of children's playgrounds then had the opportunity to submit a concrete proposal. Two providers responded to the call. However, the offers received from the playground equipment manufacturers did not reflect the wishes and suggestions of the people surveyed. The play value was also deemed too low by the experts from the city council. It quickly became clear that the existing designs could not be an option for the next 20 to 30 years.

And yet another realization emerged: both timber prices and construction services have literally exploded in the last three years. When these were applied for three years ago for the playground, 200,000 euros was considered to be an appropriate financial allocation. However, in view of current prices, considerable restrictions on the design of the playgrounds are to be expected.

The playgrounds will now be put out to tender again by May 31 at the latest. In order to avoid closing the playgrounds during the peak season, construction work will not begin until the fall/winter of 2024.

New equipment for the playgrounds

But the Untreusee and the Bismarck Tower are not the only playgrounds in Hof. A new seating area has been installed on the playground at the Botanical Garden, a raised bed with edible plants has been created and a bookcase for children is to be set up. This idea came from playground sponsors Maximilian Pohl and Katharina Kraus and was made possible by the Erna Weidner endowment from the Hof Hospital Foundation.

The Longoliusplatz children's playground is currently being renovated and equipped with new play equipment, including a climbing and balancing facility and a new toddler play unit.

Other playgrounds have also received new equipment or been renovated thanks to the support and ideas of the playground sponsors. But also thanks to generous donors, such as the Bruns family.

Jägersruh children's playground: the old stainless steel slide was replaced by a new one.
Leimitz children 's playground: New playhouse for small children.
Frauenlobstraße children 's playground: The old stainless steel slide was replaced by a new one.
The "Am langen Holz" children's playground in Jägersruh has been given a new look. Thanks to a new coat of paint, on which young and old worked together, the playground looks almost like new. Rene Puschert and Sabine Pinkas were in charge of this project for the local SPD association Hof/Ost-Jägersruh.
The Storchenweg children's playground was also painted under the leadership of Mr. Wolfgang Matschke.
Thanks to a donation from Ms. Gudrun Bruns, two new tango swing seats were installed at the Otterberg and Schellenberg children's playgrounds.