Playful Neighbourhoods and Communities

Creating playful neighbourhoods can help children’s to reclaim their freedom to play out in the streets and spaces where they live, improving their health, happiness, confidence and sense of belonging.  Although there are still some streets and estates where this happens and that’s great. But the reality is that most children have far less freedom to play out than their parents or grandparents had. Yet though the world may have changed for today’s children, their need for free play close to their homes remains just as strong. This dwindling freedom means that they, their families and communities are losing out on something important.

Playing Out is a originally a Bristol model where neighbours close their street to through traffic for a couple of hours, creating a safe space for children to play out. This model has also rolled out in many areas around the UK on a regular basis which:

Gives children a chance to play out freely and safely on their own street.

Builds the conditions needed for street play to be normal again (safer streets, more connected communities, safety in numbers)

Creates a vision of streets as vibrant, playable spaces

Play Rangers are an exciting approach to providing outdoor play provision for children and young people and essentially encourage children to use parks and open spaces all year round and advocate for children's rights to freely chosen play in their communities.  They are outreach workers who provide exciting, challenging and risky play opportunities for children and young people.

There are various organisations that provide open access sessions in different parts of the city these include:

Felix Road Adventure Playground

This loosely supervised open access style of provision give children of all ages, abilities and backgrounds the chance to play freely together, interact and make new friends.