London’s Princess Diana Memorial playground is getting a £3 million upgrade

The Princess Diana Memorial playground in Kensington Gardens is one of the most famous and beloved children’s parks on the planet. It first opened in 2000 and is visited by more than one million children a year. Naturally, all those years and all those kids stomping, sprinting and crawling about has taken its toll on the play area, and lots of equipment is in need of replacing. 

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Now, planning permission has been granted for a £3 million transformation of the park. It’ll still look like the playground that millions of people know and love, with the Royal Parks charity promising that the makeover will ‘retain the characteristics of the existing Peter Pan-inspired playground’.

The current galleon will be replaced will be a new and improved ship in the centre of the park with fresh features, including an additional lookout platform and a tunnel slide.  

Kids can also get excited for the new treehouse encampment at the playground, which will feature three climbable towers, talk tubes, a tunnel slide and a see-saw bridge. The park’s Mermaid Fountain is getting a redesign, too, with a sand play area and interactive dams and gates for the little’uns to play with in the water. 

The new equipment will be made out of equipment from timber from sustainably managed forests. The area will also get improved accessibility, with wheelchair-friendly spaces in both the galleon and the treehouse encampment. 

Andy Williams, park manager for Kensington Gardens, said: ‘This free-to-access playground has a special place in millions of children’s hearts across the globe, and it’s about to get even better. Working with play specialist providers, our own landscape teams, and the local community we have developed proposals that will continue to make this playground an experience like no other.’

‘The planned accessibility improvements will mean that the playground is open and welcoming to all children.’

Work will start on the playground’s makeover this autumn, with it set to reopen in summer 2026. 

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