Hundreds of community playground schemes in England are being scrapped or scaled back because of government cuts. Education Secretary Michael Gove has frozen grants to 122 councils for building and running up to 1,300 playground schemes, many designed by youngsters. Only schemes where construction has already started are to be allowed. The government said it had inherited unrealistic spending commitments.
The £235m Playbuilder scheme was started more than two years ago under Labour to develop 3,500 playgrounds designed by and for the communities they were to serve. Each local council was given cash to build 22 play areas. Some of these have now been built. This year, grants for over 1,300 playgrounds in 93 local authorities had been approved. The Department for Education could not say exactly how many playgrounds would be scrapped as it is only now collecting information about which schemes are in construction. It has warned local councils not to incur any more costs on schemes and said it will review closely any commitments already made.
In his letter to the heads of children's services, Mr Gove named play as a key area affected by his department's contribution to reducing the public deficit. He said he was reducing funding for play projects to protect frontline education services. He also scrapped targets for the number of play facilities councils have to provide, and removed the protection from playground building budgets, saying any unspent money could be retained by his department.
Parent Emma Kane has worked with children in Hook Norton to set up a playground scheme which is now unlikely to go ahead. She said: "It's insane to cut what is such a small amount of money." She said playgrounds were a "soft target" for the government's "drastic cuts." She added: "Playbuilder is unique in that communities had to come together and work together to get the funding, in a perfect example of 'Big Society'. There's lots of disappointed children out there, they keep asking me what's happening and I just don't know what to say to them. Furthermore, as everyone knows, playgrounds fight childhood obesity. What does it say about the government's strategy to cut projects that promote both health and communities working together?"
