Jacob and Andrea Tuitoga have had a great start to the school holidays - the siblings were having fun at the Punanga Nui Playground yesterday.

Regulars to the playground “because we like it so much”, the siblings were happy to hear that the popular site will most possibly resume opening on Saturdays from this coming weekend.

Due to Te Marae Ora Alert Level 2 measures that came into effect in August when a positive community case of Covid-19 had been identified in New Zealand - the playground had been closed on Saturdays (open during the week).

Market manager William Taripo said the decision to close the playground on Saturdays was because they did not have the manpower to monitor a tag in facility in that specific site.

“We will sit down and review this and it looks like we will open the playground this Saturday,” said Taripo.

During the week the playground was fine to remain open because of less children - but on Saturdays - the number of children were found to be too large to manage without a proper monitoring system, said Taripo.

The market continues to open on Saturdays and people must CookSafe tag in or register their names when visiting the location.

“We are still using CookSafe which is part of our requirements in order to keep the market open,” explained Taripo.