Play for Today

Trace the development of outdoor play in modern Britain and it's clear that to a great extent we owe a debt to the Victorians. Many of our public parks are a result of the ambition to encourage recreation and exercise among the growing populations of Britain's towns and cities. However, many parks have become rundown and no longer offer children a quality play experience.

Today's concerns about childhood obesity and lack of exercise raise the profile of play provision, emphasising the role that recreation grounds and public parks have to play in helping people lead more active lives. Opportunities to play in open spaces help develop the 'whole person', as we know that children learn and socialise through play.

This At your Leisure looks at how vital play provision is today, and how inconsistent provision of quality play facilities in the UK undermines efforts to cut obesity and encourage child development. It also details plans for a major national investment in outdoor play, investigating how one project in a deprived area of England has set the tone for a new generation of play provision.

Image: There are profound benefits to be gained from play time. Copyright: Leon Bidon

The Benefits of Play

There is substantial evidence that play is good for children; in fact, it is no exaggeration to say that play is essential to young people's development. In particular, play can be said to deliver the following benefits:

A space for children to meet and socialise with people of their own age
Physical, emotional and mental health and development
Children learn about themselves and their environment at their own pace

Research by the Children's Play Council indicates that there are a number of serious threats to delivering these benefits:

The range of play opportunities varies enormously
Some local authorities spend ten times as much per play area, and over four times as much per child, than others
In some areas, free open space provision has been replaced by paid childcare services, inevitably favouring children in more affluent households
Children seeking excitement and challenge from play are often denied this due to providers' fears over accidents and liability
Lack of involvement of children in decisions affecting their play opportunities
Needs of different groups of children are often overlooked
Fewer than 40% of local authorities have play policies or strategies
Only about a third of all children's play settings uses quality assurance schemes

In addition, society's fears of external threats to child safety mean that, in many areas, pre-teenage children rarely play outside without parental supervision. It's clear that growing up in Britain is very different today to children's lifestyles in the past.

New Funds for Play Development

Towards the end of 2005, the Big Lottery Fund (formerly the New Opportunities Fund) announced plans to release £124 million directly to local authorities seeking to create, improve and develop their play spaces. The scheme, known as the Children's Play Initiative, includes a further £31 million to be invested in regional support and innovation in children's play.

How did the Big Lottery Fund decide how much should be allocated to each local authority? Two main factors were important:

The Fund states that no locality will receive less than £200,000 (except for the Scilly Isles).

What kind of play initiatives will this funding encourage?

The Big Lottery Fund gives some examples of the type of project that it will fund:

Paulsgrove Inside/Outside Playground

A good example of the type of facility that could be created is the Paulsgrove Inside/Outside Playground project in Portsmouth. Read the press release from Sutcliffe Play (Word doc, 91.5KB), the playground manufacturers.

Image: The entrance to the Inside/Outside Playground. Copyright: Tom Crowe, Sutcliffe Play

The following is a summary of the press release concerning the development:

A number of local authorities have been so impressed by what's been achieved by Portsmouth City Council's Children's Play Service on the Paulsgrove housing estate they're keen to use some of the ideas in their own local schemes
The Paulsgrove estate has been in need of new investment for many years. The estate was built shortly after the Second World War as a temporary answer to Portsmouth's post-war housing problems
Since its completion towards the end of last year, Paulsgrove Inside/Outside Playground project is rapidly proving to be a lot more than just a playground
Children's Play Services colleagues asked people in the area what the local community wanted. People wanted a safe place for their children to play within easy reach of their homes
An estimated 3,500 children live on the estate. A major playground project was planned to meet their needs
Sport England provided £479,000. Additional financial assistance came from Green Spaces and the New Opportunities Fund
What makes this project different is that its design includes an office and indoor play area underground, with sections of outdoor play equipment built over the top of it
There is a small office for the on-site team who work at the playground, a kitchen, toilets and a space for indoor play
The playground is dominated by a 10.5 metre high tower
There's also an aerial runway, swings, trampoline and talk tubes
For safety and security, the playground is staffed during school term-time
5-13 year-olds have open access between 3.00pm to 7.00pm on weekdays and from 10.00am to 6.00pm at a weekend. Organised activities are free and easy - children simply join in if they wish
The playground at Paulsgrove aims to be as exciting to a thirteen-year-old as it is to a five-year-old

Depending on where you live, the Inside/Outside project might be seen as unusual: it cost in excess of £0.5 million; it caters for a large number of children in a deprived area; and it is the result of consultation with local people. Many existing play areas are not like this at all.

Play: A Local View

In the local park there is a large playing field, donated to local people at the turn of the 20th Century by a land-owning benefactor. The park is a council-owned facility, with a bowling green, putting green and tennis courts, with gardens and trees. The playing field next to the park is owned by the National Playing Fields Association and is managed by the local town council. The field contains a skate park and children's play area and a large open space with a play wall in its centre.

Together, the park and the playing field represent a major local community asset, providing play, recreation and leisure opportunities for people of all ages. However, the children's play area is vandalised on a regular basis and at the time of writing featured several broken or out-of-use pieces of equipment. It is of course unfair to generalise, but much of the damage appears to be caused by young people subjecting equipment, such as swings and slides, to damage and graffiti.

Children are often disappointed when they arrive at the park, finding that their favourite piece of equipment has been vandalised. But the damage to the play area poses several important questions about providing opportunities for young people to play and enjoy their leisure time. Some of these issues are listed below:

Playgrounds and Risk

How risky is play? Should we make sure that every risk to children's health and safety is managed away? How should playground providers reflect the threat of possible legal action? A check on the data about playground accidents and children's injuries produces some interesting results:

However, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) says that there are 40,000 child injuries at playgrounds each year. The data above suggests that the vast majority of these must be minor. RoSPA does though indicate that it believes that measures taken to ensure safety should not take the challenge out of play in open spaces:

RoSPA strongly believes that these areas should be "as safe as necessary - not as safe as possible"

Conclusion

The Lottery windfall that awaits play provision in Britain is long overdue. Play opportunities are vital for children's development. The need for children to lead more active lives has become a paramount concern as worries grow over rising obesity rates. But the quality of the play experience offered to children is also vital. Fears for children's safety outside could be made worse by providing unsafe play areas. The Children's Play initiative offers a unique chance to tackle these and other issues head on.

Acknowledgement

We are grateful to Sutcliffe Play for their assistance in creating this resource.

Activities

You work for a local authority in delivering children's play services. Having successfully applied for funding to redevelop your local playground, you have been asked to produce a discussion document outlining the ways in which the playground can be revitalised.

In particular, you have been set the following tasks (ideas are given after some of the questions):

How should you ensure that the views of the local community are taken into account when decisions are taken on investing in play equipment?
How can local children, parents and others be involved?
What's the best way of gaining the views of all the interest groups? (For example, surveys, interviews and meetings).
How can you ensure access to the new playground by disadvantaged groups? Among the key aspects here are:
- Getting the message out to children in ethnic minority households
- Making the playground accessible to children with disabilities
How can you maximise children's safety in the playground, whilst maintaining the challenge of the equipment?
How should the authority prevent vandalism of the new playground? (For example, by increasing staffing, introducing monitoring equipment, enclosing the play area, and getting young people involved).

Sources of Further Information:

'Our natural heritage: urban parks', Tzoulas and James 2004, The Research Institute for the Built and Human Environment, University of Salford. (PDF, 1.3MB) (http://www.els.salford.ac.uk/urbannature/interactive/Downloads/Leaflets/Urban_parks.pdf)

The Children's Play initiative - links to local authority allocations are at the bottom of the page(http://www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/programmes/childrensplay/childrens_play.htm)

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At your Leisure - 16 January 2006