Hall Park in Burneside is open again, a Kendal playground and the Queen's Park skatepark are in procurement, and Kendal's pump track is advancing.

The refurbished playground at Hall Park in Burneside has reopened, and three more play projects in the Kendal and Windermere area are moving through the council’s programme.

The update is in Westmorland and Furness Council’s Quarter 1 corporate performance report, which goes to Cabinet today. The council calls the Hall Park reopening “a major milestone” for the quarter, which ran from 1 April to 30 June 2026.

Burneside is a village about two miles north of Kendal. Hall Park has three separate play areas in the council’s own site list, all at LA9 6QF, and all classed as small local playgrounds.

Status of four play projects in the Kendal and Windermere area at Quarter 1 2026 to 27: Hall Park Burneside open, Hawthorn Gardens Kendal in procurement and delivery, Queen's Park skatepark Windermere in procurement and delivery, Kendal pump track work advancing
Graphic by Kendal News
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The Windermere skatepark

The biggest of the four is a replacement skatepark at Queen’s Park in Windermere, which the report puts in the procurement and delivery phase alongside a second project at Hawthorn Gardens in Kendal, LA9 6FG.

Queen’s Park is the only site in the whole of the former South Lakeland area that the council’s playground strategy describes as a destination playground with both a pump track and a skate park.

The skate park there is over 25 years old, and the ramps are the old modular metal and wood type. Windermere Park for All says they are outdated and “do not cater for children with different physical abilities”. The plan is a concrete bowl, usable by skateboarders, scooter riders and roller skaters, designed and project managed by a specialist concrete skatepark contractor with input from local riders.

The council says “additional funding for the project has been secured through the National Lottery and fundraising efforts led by the Windermere Park for All Group”. That National Lottery money appears nowhere on the group’s own site, which has published nothing since 10 June. We could not confirm the amount or the fund today.

What the group has published is a run of grants since it launched the skatepark appeal on 9 February 2026:

  • March 2026: United Utilities, Cumberland Building Society, Impact International, Windermere and Bowness Town Council, and Windermere and Ambleside Lions Club
  • 3 April 2026: £2,000 from The Hadfield Trust, and £5,000 from South Lakes Housing
  • 13 May 2026: £5,000 from Westmorland and Furness Council’s Children and Young People Grant
  • 10 June 2026: the Bryan Lancaster Trust, the Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner for Cumbria’s Community Fund, and the Cumbria Home From Home Fund and Matson Ground Fund, both through Cumbria Community Foundation

The group’s chair, Ben Berry, said of that last round: “I grew up on Matson Ground and played on my skateboard there, so it feels really special that funding connected with the place I grew up is now helping create somewhere my own children, and many other local children, will be able to skate.”

The group has not published a target, a running total, or a construction date.

This is not a first attempt. Windermere Park for All started in early 2017 and raised £120,000 for a new playground at Queen’s Park and £50,000 for a pump track. Both were officially opened in November 2021. The skatepark is the third phase of the same campaign. All of this is on the group’s news page.

The Kendal pump track

The council report says work on the Kendal pump track is advancing, and that the equivalent schemes at Barrow and Penrith depend on funding being confirmed.

Kendal Town Council’s projects page gives the background. It says it has long supported a permanent pump track in the town. It credits “extensive consultation and the roaring success of a pop up track at last year’s cycling festival”. It is working in partnership with Westmorland and Furness Council to deliver it.

Neither council has published a site or an opening date. Kendal’s existing skate park is at Beezon Fields, LA9 6BL.

What it means for you

Hall Park is the only one of the four you can use today. Everything else is at the stage where money and contracts are being settled, and no council has committed to a date in public.

If you want to influence the rest, the openings are:

  • The skatepark appeal is still fundraising. Windermere Park for All is a community group, not a council department, and the £120,000 and £50,000 it raised before came from local giving.
  • Consultation is how sites get chosen. The council has just finished consulting on the Biggar Bank and Clifton playgrounds, both outside this area, and its playground strategy commits it to prioritising sites “based on community needs, usage levels, and safety”.

That strategy is also the place to check what you are entitled to nearby. Its site list runs to 57 playgrounds across the former South Lakeland area, 24 of them under a Kendal address, five at Windermere and Troutbeck, three at Ambleside and two at Grasmere.

For other things to do with children in the area, see our things to do in Kendal page. Council tax, including what the town council precept pays for, is on our Kendal council tax bands page.

Sources