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° СOlin Ward, an architect and anarchist, urged parents in his influential 1978 book, The child in the city, to let their kids ‘outside the sandbox’ – the equivalent of today’s iPhones and iPads and supervised activities (if it’s Monday, it has to be ballet, judo and an introduction to Mandarin …) – and let them run wild in the city, to explore, hunt, collaborate, tinker and create without interference from adults who think they know best. In short, despite parents’ fears of “rapists, thieves and motorists”, give children back the freedom to play, a pastime in danger of disappearing. Can this idea be revived?
In Tuesday, Raising the national commission in the game launched a year-long investigation supported by Anne Longfield Center for Young Lives, supported by 12 commissioners who are experts in why play is vital to children’s social, physical and mental wellbeing, working in collaboration with young advisers. The commission will hold workshops, take evidence, visit innovative projects and produce a set of recommendations, including a new national game plan, in June 2025.
The right of the child “to participate in play and recreational activities”, Article 31 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCPA) was ratified in the United Kingdom in 1991 but was never directly incorporated into domestic law. The commission will also explore how the right of families to sue developers who build homes without adequate space for children to play — space that is much more than a fenced-off playground surrounded by “No Ball Games” signs — can also be applied.
Entrepreneur Paul Lindley is the chairman of the committee and the author of the thought-provoking Raising the Nation: How to Build a Better Future for Our Children. The book describes how the social contract for children has been severely fractured, citing sadly familiar statistics – skyrocketing mental health problems, obesity, poverty and shrinking child-friendly places, playgrounds, Sure Start and youth centres. He writes: “There seems to be a paradox in that a play can mean anything, but is defined as nothing significant.”
The child no longer has the right to wander (to breathe fresh air). Once, during the holidays, he came out in the morning and called for tea. Now stick to the front garden unless you are in every eighth household does not have a garden, or living in a high-rise apartment, or squeezed into overcrowded housing, or housed in an unstable neighborhood. Parents worry. In 2021, the figures show that a child of seven or younger was killed or seriously injured every 17 hours in a traffic accident. . The solution? Keep children indoors. Eighty percent of spaces in London are like this composed of its streets.
According to UN-Habitat, 60% of all urban dwellers worldwide will be under 18 by 2030. Cities must change. Children are also citizens. The streets become pedestrianized; play rangers open opportunities; Cardiff and Leeds are officially child-friendly cities; Wales has the world’s first Commissioner for Future Generations and a Welfare of Future Generations Actbut the commissioner has no legal influence to effect change.
In 2008 the Labor government introduced a 10-year national pension worth £235m game strategy with the onus on local authorities to ensure ‘child-friendly communities’; an initiative rejected by the Conservative government. Investing in childhood needs a revamp. As Lindley points out: “Youth make up 20% of our population and 100% of our future.”
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