Sustainable playgrounds  - sustainable communities

"Play is a child's work." "We need to let kids be kids."

Free range kids are allowed to explore their environment, able to take gentle risks, play, hang out and enjoy a healthy childhood. When we think we are being good parents and keeping our children safely organised in sports and ballet classes, 'safe' indoors at home, we are in fact doing documented harm. We must reconnect our children with Nature. Outdoor play experiences are vital to combat depression, low self confidence, inability to assess risk, rickets, obesity, low muscle tone, low bone density, poor gross motor co ordination, diabetes, heart conditions and premature death, develop independent thinking and a sense of personal responsibility.


Sustainable Playground design requires

• attention to wildlife corridors
• increase bio-diversity through habitat creation or habitat enhancement e.g. placement of bat boxes, bird nest boxes, wildflower meadows, varied planting, maintenance regimes such as leaving long grass in certain areas
• access - will the playground withstand the pressures of constant use?
• careful project management of the installation to ensure natural elements are retained
• to be self sufficient in water supply
  
  

Planning your play ground or community garden?

Simplified, there are 3 steps to a successful project

1. Engage a suitable playground designer to canvas the ideas and opinions of all user groups. For example, a natural playground design brief must consider the needs of teenagers, dog walkers and bird watchers as well as the young children and parents. This stage must be fully and carefully considered to ensure the success of the project. Planning objections, vandalism and antisocial behaviour are seldom a problem if all user's needs are taken into consideration from the outset.
   
2. Commission a play designer (the same sustainable playground designer you used in step 1 is ideal) to draw all the ideas together into an overall plan. This will show the play area design, using scaled drawings of the site including services, and detail the materials to be used.
   
3. Funding can come from your local authority or any number of community and environmental grants (Note: Funding bodies recommend independent play designer's fees are paid as a direct cost of the project )

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