The clocks have sprung forward bringing lighter evenings and more time for children to play outside. But we know that children do not play out in anything like the numbers they did even a generation ago.
Children face many problems when trying to play outside – a huge rise in car ownership, the loss of residential streets to through traffic and parked cars and other cultural shifts that have driven children off their own streets.
As thousands of new homes spring up across the UK we know from our own reporting that often anti-child bias can be designed into these sites. Play campaigners say that lockdown contributed to an already poor situation for children’s play, with neighbours, landlords and councils all turning on children.
Do children play outside where you live? Did you grow up playing outside – and if you did, do children still play out there? Have you or your children received complaints about playing – or had play space built on or taken away? Have you taken action to support children’s play where you live or through your work?
