Reeling 'em in

Where can you find all these kids who are into construction? The unlikely answer is in the yard of a plant hire company in Strood, Kent. The yard has been converted into a construction adventure playground – a sort of Bob the Builder Disneyland.

The yard, which is about the size of five tennis courts, contains about 20 JCB diggers, backhoes and dumper trucks. All mini-sized, of course. The kids are allowed to play with the machines. Not surprisingly, some of the adults seem pretty keen to wrest the controls from their children.

The biggest machines
The biggest machines the kids are allowed to use are the 15 JCB 803 and 805 excavators. Kids as young as seven are allowed to use the machines by themselves, while five–year-olds can go on with mum or dad. Using the 803s, the kids are encouraged to dig big holes and then fill 'em back up. In the interest of research, I had a go and it was great fun – no wonder the kids are fizzing with excitement as they jump down from the cabs.

Five smaller JCB801s – the kind you see digging cable trenches – are lined up for some games of skill. Using a specially adapted hook attached to the digging arm, kids try to snatch plastic ducks from a paddling pool.

Two of the 805 machines are lined up in front of mini-skips filled with gravel and hidden "bars of gold". Using a sieved bucket, the kids have to find the gold. Behind the small diggers, two mini-dumper trucks are being driven by kids around a course. A giant rubber ball is in the bucket, and the kids have to navigate the course and then dump the ball in a target bin.

Combine this with a play area packed with plastic ride-on dumpers, a bouncy castle and rides on full-sized backhoes (dressed up to look like Bob the Builder's Scoop) around the local industrial estate and you have a land of happy kids – even when they have to stand in 15-minute queues. Inside, you and the kids can play computer games and take refuge from the scorching summer sun.

Creating a park
Diggerland, as the park is called, is the idea of Hugh Edeleanu, chairman of Kent plant hirer HE Services. The company, which Cambridge-educated Edeleanu started in 1972, used to run open days, explains company spokeswoman Sandi Digby. "The dads and lads used to have so much fun having a go on the machines that it seemed like an opportunity too good to miss."

It took almost five years for the idea of Diggerland to be realised. Digby explains that for four years HE Services had to discuss, with the HSE, the safety of having kids using excavators. The result is that HE Services, which still owns Diggerland, trains and employs local students to supervise. Beyond the obvious need for cash, students have benefited in other ways. David Best, a 16-year-old media studies student, was offered a job with utilities company Seeboard because he had been trained to use and supervise excavators. Best has decided to stay on at Diggerland for now.

Since the Kent opening in April 2000, HE Services has opened two more Diggerland parks. Diggerland Devon, near Cullompton, which opened this May, and Diggerland Durham. Entrance costs only £2.50, and use of the JCBs costs about £1 per go. So go on. Take your kids or borrow someone else's for the day and ramp up their enthusiasm for a career in construction.