CHILDREN in Newsome can now play it safe.

And it’s all thanks to a grant from the Examiner’s Community Chest.

Newsome Pre-School Playgroup has resurfaced its play area with tarmac with the £2,000 it got from the cash giveaway.

The play area is by the Scout hut on Newsome Road South.

Senior supervisor Beverley Dearnley said: “The surface before was concrete and broken up.

“It was cracked and uneven and we had a lot of children tripping up and having accidents.

“It really needed doing. We couldn’t have done it without the money.”

Mrs Dearnley said the play area, which has equipment and activities including rockers, balancing balls, hoops and hopscotch, was now much safer. She added: “It was in need of repairing for quite a long time. We were getting more and more problems. It’s a lot better now.”

The playgroup was runner-up in the Community Chest scheme in 2006.

It received £300 from Newsome Church Charity Shop to add to the £2,000.

In the last three years the Examiner has given away nearly £40,000 to deserving community projects.

Organisations applied for a slice of the money and readers voted for the projects they thought were most worthy.

Several other projects have benefited from the Community Chest.

They include Scouts at Marsden who wanted to set up a canoe-training project and a big community scheme to revive Longwood Mechanics’ Hall.