Calls for sun shades across Tauranga City playgrounds to prevent too hot to handle equipment are being refuted by Tauranga City Council claims its on top of the issue with careful equipment consideration.

Tauranga City Council parks operations team leader Steve Webb inspects The Strand's waterfront playground. Photo: Tracy Hardy.

The Cancer Society wants councils to take action and cool down the issue of playground equipment being too hot for children during summer, causing some cases of burns when they touch it.

Cancer Society spokesperson Rachael Mounsey says the organisation fully supports the move for council's providing sun shades for the playground, in what is the best interest for children and parents.

'Most importantly really for our reason would be because of the sun, because of children being their most vulnerable, at that stage of their skin, to skin cancer. They say that early exposure to sun is cumulative and can cause skin cancer later on in life,” says Rachael.

'The equipment is obviously hot so by using the sun shades its two-fold, the kids don't get burnt, the equipment doesn't get as hot; and of course you are protecting them from the sun, which is important to us.

But Tauranga City Council claims to have the issue under control, reporting just one incident of heat-related playground injuries during the last year.

Tauranga City Council parks operations team leader Steve Webb says parks staff dealt with one phone call from a parent during last year's drought, when a toddler became upset after wandering onto the Mount Drury playground surface in bare feet in the heat of the day.

Following the phone call, contractors monitored the surface but found there is not a high risk from the surface. Steve adds council staff take the possibility of heat-related incidents into consideration when planning or replacing playground equipment.

'Trees offer shade but it's hard to plant them in the ideal location every single time,” says Steve.

'In a perfect world there would be a budget to install shade sails over playgrounds during the hottest months – but that's just not realistic.”

Instead, less heat absorbent colours are used in playground equipment along with balancing that need with vibrant colours, which don't fade too quickly. Wood chip is also a cooler surface than artificial ones, but this comes at a higher maintenance cost.

Steve says the city's high-use playgrounds have artificial surfaces with lighter colours, where possible.

Rachael says already a number of schools nationwide have or are installing sun shades into their playgrounds, a trend she believes council's should follow closely.

'A lot of schools now have sun shades over their playgrounds and that is becoming really common prominent. So they have obviously put an importance on that for both reasons but a lot on the burning of the kids because they are playing outside in the heat of the day,” says Rachael.

Steve says the city's playgrounds have a wide range of surfaces including steel, wool, rubber and plastic; and playgrounds heating up in the sun are a reality of outdoor recreation structures.

'If the day is hot enough to make a playground surface uncomfortably hot, it is probably making other surfaces hot like footpaths and beach sand; so in general, people seem to use their own common sense.

'Children love the steel rocket slide at Memorial Park, but on days when it's too hot they probably just don't use it.”