\n<\/p>\n
Children in cities across Britain face barriers to playing outside because urban planners are prioritising housebuilding over parks, a study has found.<\/p>\n
The research, published in the peer-reviewed journal Cities and Health, found that planners were prioritising the approval of new homes ahead of outdoor play spaces due to a combination of policy misalignment, financial constraints and pressures stemming from a lack of housing.<\/p>\n
Emily Ranken, from the University College London Institute for Education and corresponding author of the research, said: \u201cOur study offers a deep analysis of the challenges in embedding play into urban policy and our recommendations offer a blueprint for councils, developers, and public health leaders to make play a priority.\u201d<\/p>\n
She added: \u201cWell-designed play space has so many positive knock-on effects. For children, it takes them outside, away from screens and develops their cognitive and physical skills. And for parents it helps build community ties and vital social networks.\u201d<\/p>\n
The study\u2019s participants, from the London borough of Tower Hamlets and Bradford, who influence urban planning in their respective local authorities, told researchers that developers saw play space as a \u201cnice to have\u201d, which led to a \u201cconstant kind of challenge between building up housing and keeping enough green and open space and amenity space and play space\u201d.<\/p>\n
The difficulties of recruiting and retaining good local authority staff, the effects of austerity, the pandemic and Brexit were also cited as barriers to effective urban planning.<\/p>\n
Furthermore, \u201cwell-intentioned but fragmented\u201d urban planning policy within these local authorities was deemed to be problematic, with \u201cplay\u201d and \u201cphysical activity\u201d being used interchangeably.<\/p>\n
For example, Tower Hamlets council\u2019s \u201cplay charter\u201d was described by participants as a \u201ccollection of catchphrases\u201d that lacked a meaningful action plan.<\/p>\n
Greater regulation, such as national statutory guidance requiring developers to prioritise provision of playable space over quantity of homes, could help mitigate these competing interests, said the study.<\/p>\n
A recent study revealed that a third of children across the UK do not play outdoors after school, with children living in less deprived communities benefiting more from outdoor play than those in more deprived communities.<\/p>\n
Dr Amanda Seims, from the Bradford Institute for Health Research and Lancaster University, and co-author of the latest study, said: \u201cCompared to their parents\u2019 generation, the amount of time today\u2019s children play outside has declined by 50%. But this downward trend doesn\u2019t have to be inevitable.<\/p>\n
\u201cThoughtful planning, which listens to the voices of children and young people, can produce accessible, enriching environments where children can develop.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tower Hamlets council and Bradford council have been contacted for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Children in cities across Britain face barriers to playing outside because urban planners are prioritising housebuilding over parks, a study has found. The research, published in the peer-reviewed journal Cities and Health, found that planners were prioritising the approval of new homes ahead of outdoor play spaces due to a combination of policy misalignment, financial<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19309,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[7364,166,1316,584,755,3330,2658,328,443,188],"class_list":{"0":"post-19308","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-social-issues","8":"tag-barriers","9":"tag-children","10":"tag-due","11":"tag-face","12":"tag-outdoor","13":"tag-planning","14":"tag-play","15":"tag-policy","16":"tag-poor","17":"tag-study"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19308\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}