Some City of Regina sports facilities ready for return to play

Shrieking kids will be heard once again in Saskatchewan neighbourhoods Friday thanks to the reopening of playgrounds, but other City of Regina sports facilities still haven’t been given the all clear.

Rod Schmidt, the city’s acting manager of sport facilities and special events, says playgrounds, washrooms, picnic sites and individual recreation facilities like basketball courts and skateparks that were closed to prevent the spread of COVID-19 will reopen to the public on Friday.

“It’s something that obviously the public is looking forward to and it has been a couple of tough months for families keeping kids entertained,” Schmidt said.

“This is an opportunity finally for people to get out and enjoy these spaces that have been developed for their enjoyment.”

However, those interested in using the SportPlex, the city’s athletic fields and its baseball diamonds will have to wait.

Schmidt said the SportPlex won’t reopen until the second stage of Phase 4 of the Re-Open Saskatchewan plan. It’s considered an integrated facility, so the city can’t open different parts of the building separately.

City fields are in need of some maintenance to get them ready for play, a process that Schmidt estimated will take about two weeks.

But even if fields and diamonds were ready to go, Schmidt says the city is still waiting for the provincial government’s all clear to go ahead with reopening them.

“We take our cues from the province and the health authority. That has been our process the past several months and we’re continuing on with that,” said Schmidt.

Health protocols in place for sport facilities

While people can enjoy the facilities that are opening up this week, Schmidt reiterated the province’s health guidelines.

Those include sanitizing hands before and after play and maintaining a social distance of two metres.

“When you’re going to these places, we want people to remember to do the proper things to stay safe,” Schmidt said.

Those health protocols are especially important given the city will not be regularly sanitizing playground equipment.

“I believe we have 160 playgrounds so (it’s) pretty much a very difficult task to sanitize everything on an ongoing basis,” Schmidt explained.

To help maintain physical distancing, Schmidt said people should take care to not play on equipment that is already well-populated.

“If the space is busy and you can’t keep some of the distance that’s being recommended, come back at another time,” he said. “We don’t want people to take that chance.”

Plans for Leisure Guide still in place

The City’s annual Leisure Guide, which lists available programs and leisure activities for all ages in Regina, may still be published later this summer. Schmidt said a decision could be made later this week or early next week.

“Right now, it’s still something we’re looking at in terms of what the restrictions will be and what we’ll be able to offer,” he said.

The future of the Leisure Guide, typically distributed in August, will depend how effectively the city feels it can offer certain programs according to government restrictions.

“Certainly our people who are responsible for the programming of our major facilities and neighbourhood centres, they are working at their programming as if we will be able to go (ahead) and they will obviously have levels we can scale back to to meet the provincial guidelines,” Schmidt said.