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Having a picnic’s a tall order

Kate Stirrup
26/ 2/2004

PICNICS are off the menu at Chorlton Water Park - unless you're a giant.

The city council has installed new picnic tables at the Maitland Avenue park, but a blunder has meant they are too big for kids to use.

Dad Tony Payne regularly takes his five-year-old twins Charlie and Grace for picnics at the park.

But he says the new picnic tables are far too big for all but the tallest people to use - tiny Charlie and Grace have no chance of dining at the new additions.

They can hardly see over the table tops, putting a stop to their family picnics.

Tony, 42 said: "I saw the tables being put in a couple of weeks ago and thought at the time they looked a bit big. Then when I took the twins at the weekend and saw the size of them I couldn't stop laughing. When Grace and Charlie sat at the table their heads just about reached the table top. And when I sat down the table top came to my chest height."

Tony, a team leader at a graphic design company added: "They are enormous and surely built for giants. Perhaps someone got the dimensions wrong. They dwarf all the old picnic tables."

Tony, who lives on Malton Avenue in Chorlton added: "I think it's great that new tables have been provided for the water park but what was wrong with the old design size? I doubt if many people less than 6ft 10inc will be able to eat a morsel off them."

A spokesman for the city council said: "We apologise for any inconvenience caused by the large picnic benches. They are new and will be fitted properly by the end of this week. The legs need to be shortened."