Government Sustainability

New government funding means that local authorities have a unique chance to transform the quality of their play spaces. Over the next three years, the government will invest more money than ever before in children’s play. Councils need to grasp this opportunity to deliver the best facilities possible, capitalising on growing trends such as natural play and play beyond the playground.
    
This latest move began in December 2007, when the secretary of state for children, schools and families, Ed Balls, announced a ten-year children’s plan. As part of this, £235m is being made available for the upgrading of 3,500 existing playgrounds, and 30 local authorities will each receive around £2m to build new, supervised adventure playgrounds — play areas, both indoor and outdoor, that are open access and staffed by qualified play workers. Last year, when the government launched its national play strategy, Fair Play, it selected 20 pathfinders and 43 ‘playbuilders’ to be the first local authorities to receive a share of the £235m.

The state of play
For decades, bland and unimaginative environments have been the results from the way that play spaces were procured, and from a lack of attention to design. Play spaces tend to look much like each other, no matter where they are, primarily because equipment comes from a small number of manufacturers, and those companies often ‘design’ the play spaces, too.
    
Some play experts, such as Tim Gill, believe that a disproportionate amount of money spent on playgrounds goes on safety surfacing, to the detriment of other facilities. “The vast majority of playgrounds built in the UK are not well designed,” he argues. “They are formulaic and are not grounded in what children actually like to do when they go out to play. There is an overemphasis on brightly coloured equipment, an over-preoccupation with safety and far too little thought and time paid to making them playful, interesting places that adults will want to spend time in, as well as children.”
    
The issue of risk is a recurrent one. CABE Space research has found that over-sensitivity to risk has stifled the design of rich and stimulating environments1. Pressures to minimise risk and liability in the public realm can lead to authorities ‘playing it safe’, resulting in standardised spaces that fail to delight, educate or offer young people the opportunity to meet or socialise.

Planning for play
It is important that local authorities plan for play provision. Whether planning to refurbish or develop a play area, or to improve play space across a neighbourhood, local authorities should include play provision in their strategic plans for public space.
    
Exemplar schemes could show the way, for instance, in the designs for the new eco-towns. Play partnerships, which have been set up to deliver comprehensive play strategies funded by the Big Lottery Fund, need to continue to steer and co-ordinate this kind of strategic approach. Strategies should consider planning, design and management of play opportunities, and bring play workers together with planners and park managers to ensure a joined-up approach across the local authority area. Play England and the Big Lottery Fund’s ‘Planning for play: guidance on the development and implementation of a local play strategy’ explains how to develop, implement and sustain an effective local play strategy.
    
Play strategies should be linked to open space strategies and local standards for play should be set in accordance with ‘Planning policy guidance note 17 (PPG 17): planning for open space, sport and recreation’2. This sets out how local authorities should assess the existing and future needs of their communities for open space, sport and recreation facilities.

Back to nature
Natural play is growing in popularity in the UK. Groundwork Trusts and the Forestry Commission, for example, are both delivering interesting projects in this area. Natural play spaces contain playful landscape elements including landform, vegetation and natural elements such as logs, stones, mud and sand. Research studies have documented the benefits that can come from natural play, including for children’s learning, healthy growth and development.
    
This year the Forestry Commission is publishing ‘Nature play: simple and fun ideas for all’, an illustrative guide that provides ideas for local forest managers to implement in their nature play areas. Many of the ideas in the guide can equally be applied to urban areas. The guide encourages the use of locally sourced materials and construction by local crafts people. Groundwork Playscape is a balanced design approach to traditional playground design and natural play. The concept encourages children to be active and creative, allowing them to take appropriate risks to learn their boundaries and valuable, lifelong lessons. For more details visit www.groundwork-playscape.org.uk.
    
Children prefer natural environments to play in as these help develop all types of play. In contrast to man-made environments, a natural setting can create more imaginative play and so prevent the dominance of a hierarchy based on physical strength that encourages bullying.
    
Much of the momentum behind natural play design originates in Denmark, Holland and Germany. These countries offer important examples of how to create well-designed, thoughtful play spaces. Danish landscape architect and play design champion Helle Nebelong believes that, by contrast to natural play spaces, standardised play equipment can actually be dangerous. As Nebelong explained at the 2007 CABE Space leaders programme: “Play becomes simplistic, and children no longer have to think about their movement. The ability to concentrate on estimated distance, height and risks needs practice. And the playground is where that practising should begin.”
    
Play expert Tim Gill believes that these countries are getting it right primarily because landscape architects enjoy a much closer involvement in the process. The starting point is a holistic look at the site, rather than at what pieces of equipment should be bought.
    
In addition, those countries have not become as pre-occupied with safety as the UK, even though their facilities meet the required European standards.

Community involvement
For the first time ever, the government will be assessing local authority performance on play by introducing a play indicator — NI199 — in 2009/10. This means that every year, children and young people will be asked how satisfied they are with their local play areas and parks. This underlines the importance of consultation for play and the need to engage with the community in a realistic and meaningful way.
    
CABE Space’s Spaceshaper helps assess the quality of a public space by bringing those who use a space together with those who manage it. A facilitated workshop involves a site visit and structured and constructive dialogue between users and professionals on the strengths and weaknesses of a space, and where the priorities for change lie. CABE Space is working with partners to develop a version of the tool specifically for children and young people. To find out more, visit: www.cabe.org.uk/spaceshaper.

Notes:
1 Living with risk: promoting better public space design, CABE, 2007
2 See tinyurl.com/3aqkfn