How are Welsh Government supporting and investing in the development of inclusive playgrounds in Wales?
Access to high quality play opportunities is critical for the social, emotional and physical development of all children. Wales was the first country to legislate for play, guaranteeing children’s right to play and requiring local authorities to ensure they provide opportunities for play via the Play Sufficiency Duty.
As part of the statutory guidance that underpins the Play Sufficiency Duty, Wales: A Play Friendly Country, Matter B states: “The Local Authority should aim to offer play opportunities that are inclusive and encourage all children to play and meet together if they wish to. It should recognise that there may be barriers for some children in taking part in the range of play opportunities in their area. This could be due to disability/impairment; children’s own communities’ cultural values or other environmental or attitudinal factors.”
Since the Play Sufficiency Duty was introduced in November 2012, we have made £33.330m revenue funding available to local authorities to enable them to meet the requirements. For the financial years 2020-2021 and 2021-2022, we awarded local authorities a total of £8m Covid recovery capital funding. The capital funding gave local authorities the flexibility to purchase large scale items and refurbish playgrounds and access to playgrounds; this was dependent on the priorities identified in their Play Sufficiency Assessments. It should also be noted that many local authorities have gifted playgrounds within their areas, to local Town and Community Councils.
The Planning Policy Wales also sets out a clear requirement that recreational and play spaces should be provided. The provision and maintenance of playgrounds forms part of the wider duty on local authorities around the assessment and securing of sufficient play opportunities.
Play Wales, the Charity supporting children’s play, funded by Welsh Government, worked with Alison John and Associates to create a toolkit for creating accessible play spaces which is intended to support local authorities and others to meet the requirements of the Equality Act 2010 in terms of developing and upgrading accessible play spaces.