Playgrounds are amazing things and help kids get out of the house and so something other than play on computer games. When councils invest in playgrounds, they invest in children's health, imagination, and general health. The problem is that most councils do not have the money to be able to maintain a lof ot them and as a result this has created a problems in how we keep them. So, under the FoI, what can we find out about playgrounds?
Julie Parmenter has done an amazing amount of work on this one. She has asked (At time of writing) 160 FoI request asking about playground closures to councils (A request that will be asked to Welsh Councils too). The thing is it does paint a rather interesting picture. A lot of parks have been closed, or allowed to fall into disrepair. It also shows how much it costs to repair and maintain them (220k for repairs in one year). This is brilliant as it shows that council spend a heck of a lot on your kids and we didn't even know.
Playgrounds are more than just the one for little kids. Adventure playgrounds are great for older kids. Walton Adventure playground in Liverpool was investigated a little bit back and was asked two different questions:
£330,930.92 was spent on this playground and you can see the responses yourself on the other one. Did you figure that it cost this much to run a playground? Did you even know what are the problems in building one?
So what about health and safety aspects? Someone asked Thanet District Council about the legal aspects for a skate park, and they got it. Isnt it amazing? You would have thought that councils would not have been willing to show this, but they are probably concerned about personal injury claims and want to show what they are doing to help others. Not only that, it shows that these fears have been looked into. In fact there are guidelines that the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills use when they inspect playgrounds. Did you know that?
What about child supervision when they arrive before school? Clackmannanshire Council answered the question (From their council perspective) and gave a lot of detail. It is a school by school breakdown and how they look after the kids. Didn't know that they kept this information? Me neither, but it shows that they are keeping an eye on this.
So what have we learnt about this? Playgrounds have a LOT of money and legal issues attached to them that councils have to investigate. They are willing to do this. In this cash strapped time, councils do spend a LOT of money trying to make sure that your kids are safe, and active.
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