FRUSTATED parents are demanding answers on when a long-promised play area will be ready for their children to use.

Families were first told that the park, next to the Middlebrook View estate in Lostock, would be completed in 2013 — but are still waiting for it to open.

Developer Persimmon Homes finally began constructing the play area last year, but it is currently boarded up and overgrown.

Kate Catmore, who wants to take her two young daughters to the park, said: “We were told that this park would be ready within a year, which would have been 2013.

“But work only started about 14 months ago. Once they had dug up all the ground, nobody came back and it was soon covered over with weeds and looked a mess.

“They came back a few months later to put the apparatus in, but this is taking such a long time to complete and we have complained so many times — it is unbelievable.”

Mrs Catmore, who moved to the estate in 2012, added that the promised play area was one of the main reasons her family, and many others, wanted to move to the area.

She said: “Most of the work at the park was finally completed in April, but the grass wasn’t given chance to settle so it was wrecked really quickly by people trampling on it.

“Then it was boarded up and it looks awful again now. We live opposite the area and it is in a terrible state.

“Kids have been trying to get onto the site and it is dangerous.

“There are children all across the estate who want to be using the park, it was a massive part of why young families moved here.

“It looks horrendous and we are fed up of looking at silver fencing covering an overgrown, weed-infested patch of land.”

The developers say that they hope to have the play area open by the middle of next month.

A spokesman for Persimmon Homes North West said: “We are aware of the ongoing issues with the children’s play area at Middlebrook View estate in Lostock, and have been in regular contact with local councillors.

“Our technical department were on site on Monday, and it is anticipated that the public open spaces and the play area will be handed over to the management company by mid-July, who will then be responsible for maintenance going forward.

“We would like to apologise to residents for the delays in opening up this area.”