BBC Breakfast: Play England talk Play Sufficiency legislation

This morning our Executive Director, Eugene Minogue was interviewed live on BBC Breakfast, where he talked about the decline in play and playgrounds, as council budgets continue to fall.

It also features Mark Hardy, from the API : Association of Play Industries and Cllr Gerald Vernon-Jackson CBE, Chair of the Local Government Association’s Culture Tourism and Sport Board.

A lot of people don’t understand how weak the planning system [in England] is with regard to provision for play. For example, the 2021 NPPF makes a single mention of children (in connection with assessing housing needs). No other Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) guidance addresses children explicitly. By contrast, newts and bats are amongst the species covered by national planning guidance!

Whilst every local authority [in England] is required to have a local plan and key organisations must to be consulted on this plan. Sport England for example. But playgrounds fall through the crack there is no body to speak for them. We at Play England would like to change.

Children’s mental health will suffer as a result, and we are calling for radical change from the current lack of protection for children and play provision in England’s planning system.