Opinion: Vox Pop - Are playgrounds becoming too boring forchildren?
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
A study from charity Playlink suggests that local authorities are deliberately designing unexciting playgrounds for children because they fear being hit by legal action if a child is injured while using the equipment.
NO - Barry Leahey, sales director, Playdale
Not with the way playgrounds have gone in the past six months and where they are going in the future. We are using electronic equipment to engage with the PlayStation generation.
Our i.play system has a website linked to it. Children can upload information on how they have done and we can also include healthy living tips and advice on what to do if, for example, they are approached by a stranger. Children's interests have moved on, but now we've introduced this equipment playgrounds have moved on as well. The equipment we've recently installed in Leicester and Reading has been really well received. YES - Marianne Mannello, policy officer, Play Wales
In general, playgrounds are becoming more boring for children. Children value playgrounds as the only places in our environment that are dedicated to them, but they would prefer, and need, more natural spaces that have more challenge and more possibilities.
Conventional playgrounds have never fully met children's play needs. Some playground providers are beginning to take up the challenge of providing what children really want and need, but the reality of squeezed maintenance and budgets, together with the threat of litigation, means most conventional playgrounds are boring.
YES - Ute Navidi, director, London Play
Litigation fears and health and safety excuses have turned playgrounds into sterile, boring spaces. Accidents form a vital part of childhood experiences, says the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents.
The best playground designs seek to re-create what has been lost. From their beginnings on London's bomb sites, exemplary adventure playgrounds offer a choice of imaginative play and risk taking. Take Glamis Road, winner of London Play's adventure playground award 2007. Here, pirates and explorers navigate an embedded boat - others revel in water and mud or dream high in a castle.
YES - Adrian Voce, director, Play England
Yes, although the work of the Play Safety Forum, Playlink and others is beginning to have an impact. Also, most local authorities now have a play strategy based on principles that include an informed approach to risk management.
Play England has commissioned a guide to implementing these principles and so we should see further improvements in the future. More revenue funding is crucial, so that authorities can properly maintain more adventurous playgrounds. We'd like to see stimulating landscape more integrated within the wider design of parks, and a greater priority for staffed adventure playgrounds.
