Colin Ward, architect and anarchist, urged parents in his influential 1978 book, The Child in the City, to let their children “out of the sandbox” – the equivalent of today’s iPhone and iPad and supervised activities (if it’s Monday, it must be ballet, judo and an introduction to Mandarin …) – and let them rip wild in the city to explore, hunt, collaborate, mess up and create without interference from adults who think they know best. In short, in spite of parental fears about “molesters, muggers and motorists”, give children back their freedom to play, a pastime in danger of dying out. Can this idea be revived?
On Tuesday, the Raising the Nation Commission on Play is launched, a year-long inquiry backed by Anne Longfield’s Centre for Young Lives, supported by 12 commissioners, who are experts in why play is vital for the social, physical and mental wellbeing of children, working in collaboration with young advisers. The commission will hold workshops, take evidence, visit innovatory projects and produce a set of recommendations, including a new national plan for play, in June 2025.
The right of a child “to engage in play and recreational activity”, article 31 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) was ratified in the UK in 1991 but it has never been directly incorporated into domestic law. The commission will explore how it could be applied and the right of families to sue developers who build housing without adequate space for children to play – space that is much more than a fenced-off playground surrounded by “No Ball Games” notices.
Entrepreneur Paul Lindley is the commission’s chair and the author of the thought-provoking Raising the Nation: How to Build a Better Future for Our Children. The book charts how the social contract for children has been hugely shredded referring to sadly familiar statistics – soaring mental health issues, obesity, poverty, and the contraction of child-friendly places, playgrounds, Sure Start and youth centres. He writes: “There seems to be a paradox in that play can mean everything but is defined as nothing of consequence.”
A child’s right to roam (breathing clean air) is no more. Once, in the holidays, it was out the door in the morning and called back for tea. Now, it’s stick to the front garden, unless you are in the one in eight households that have no garden, or living in a high-rise flat, or squeezed into over-crowded accommodation, or housed in a volatile neighbourhood. Parents worry. In 2021, figures show that a child of seven or younger was killed or seriously injured every 17 hours in a road accident. . The solution? Keep children indoors.
According to UN-Habitat, 60% of all urban dwellers globally will be under 18 by 2030. Cities and towns have to change. Children are citizens too. Streets are being pedestrianised; play rangers are opening up possibilities; Cardiff and Leeds are officially child-friendly cities; Wales has the world’s first future generations commissioner and a Well-being of Future Generations Act, but the commissioner lacks the legal clout to instigate change.
In 2008, the Labour government introduced a 10-year, £235m national play strategy with the onus on local authorities to deliver “child-friendly communities”; an initiative dumped by a Conservative government. Investing in childhood needs a renewal. As Lindley points out: “The young make up 20% of our population and 100% of our future.”
• Yvonne Roberts is an Observer columnist
