When I first heard about the plans to build a new Kindergarten on the playground “Spielplatz am Rosengärtchen” in the Neuhausstraße, I was horrified.  Not only because I had received incorrect information about the location from the Ausländerbeirat, but because I felt personally affected by it more than by many of the things that I write about on this site.

This is the playground that I take my children to and we even held a birthday party there once.  It has a variety of things for children to do and play on, including a large basket for a swing, a roundabout, two slides, a “bare foot path” (created incidentally by a local Scout group) and a couple of climbing frames.  It also has places for parents to sit down and even a few tables, and in summer the trees provide shade for most of the playground.

All of a sudden this was under threat, with the reason given that the number of new homes built at the northern end of Oberursel would, one day, require further child-care places to be available in the area. [Read more…]