More local authority funding needed for playgrounds

The Raising the National Plan Commission, a year-long independent inquiry into why play is critical to the wellbeing of children in England, has published its Interim Report, ‘State of Play’.

The Commission was launched in June 2024 by its chair, entrepreneur and campaigner Paul Lindley OBE, the founder of the UK’s biggest baby food business, Ella’s Kitchen. It is working in partnership with former children’s commissioner Baroness Anne Longfield’s Centre of Young Lives think tank.

The interim report reveals how, despite the immense benefits of breaktimes to children’s development and learning, play time has been squeezed out of the school day over a 25-year period. It analyses four national surveys carried out in 1995, 2006, 2017, and 2021, shared with the Play Commission, which show the significant decline in average total breaktime in minutes per day in England’s schools between 1995 and 2021.

In 2008, the government formulated a Play Strategy, backed by £235 million investment, which would ensure that all children were about to enjoy local, safe and exciting places to play over a 12-year period, but by 2010, the there was little encouragement, incentive, or funding for local authorities to implement these initiatives, and it was later scrapped.

Due to England's children being unhappier and unhealthier than ever before, the report calls for a new national play strategy that prioritises local authorities creating safe spaces, as well as schools prioritising playtime. Outdoor play, in particular, has the enhanced benefits of developing children's language, orally, and communications skills.

Freedom of Information requests sent to every local authority playground found that 429 playgrounds closed across England from 2012-2022, with two million children in England (32 per cent) aged up to nine not living within a ten-minute walk of a playground. Where playgrounds do exist, many are in poor states of repair, with over 56 per cent of the population over the last decade noting that the quality of their local park or play arena has declined.

The primary cause for decline are cuts to local budgets, with the collective annual park budgets for England, which account for local authority play provision, having fallen by more than £350 million in real terms between 2011 and 2023. Similarly, the Association of Play Industries' (API) Nowhere the Play report revealed that spending on play facilities has fallen by 44 per cent between 2027-28 and 2020-21.

The report calls for a government-led cross-departmental National Play Strategy for England by the end of this parliament led by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, which would be a legally binding requirement for local authorities to provide sufficient play opportunities. Further recommendations include ringfenced funding to maintain and renovate playgrounds and provide new ones in playground deserts.

To ensure children have more safe places to play, the report also calls for the government adopting a Play Sufficiency Duty for England, like the ones implemented in Scotland and Wales, to protect opportunities for play at home, school, and in the public realm. Children's right to play should be accounted for within planning policies and guidance, and for developers to be required to consult with children - and then co-design with them - during the creation of both play-specific and other public spaces, as part of a Play Sufficiency Duty.