Keith's Blog

The right to roam

At the Play Wales conference last week I gave a speech where I concluded by saying that children had the right to roam. To play in our streets and public spaces safe in the knowledge that adults would respect their right to be there. To make a noise. To play. To be children.

It’s sad isn’t it that children feel that they are no longer able to play outdoors in the way that I certainly did and I suspect many adults did when they were children. When I sat in the audience listening to other speakers we were invited to recall our own memories of playing as a child. I remembered playing outdoors. Building dens in the woods. Climbing across a pipe over the river, playing football in the streets and hanging about with my mates outside the local shop – our main meeting place.

Great times with many happy memories. And yet today a child doing the same things might be guilty of being a nuisance, maybe even anti social. Almost certainly they would be asked to move on from the shop and as for the pipe across the river, well that could result in a prosecution for trespass. What’s happened to us as a society? What’s happened to childhood? Can we find a way to restore our belief in children and the role that play has in their lives?

By playing outdoors children learn to evaluate risk, to take responsibility for themselves, to negotiate and yes they learn how to have fun, to enjoy themselves. A critical part of childhood and it is about time we as a society learned to accept that. What’s more it is our duty as adults to ensure that children can play in our streets and in our public spaces. Time to ask why cars are the dominant forces on our residential streets. Time indeed to see us limit our speed on the roads, to remove no ball games signs and replace with the assumption that children will be playing here and what’s more they are welcome to play here.

This week I attended the four UK Nations Symposium on Children’s play in London. An opportunity to hear how each country is moving forward on Children’s play. And all are making progress. None more so than here in Wales. I was able to speak about the Children and Family (Wales) Measure that will place a duty on local authorities to secure sufficient play opportunities as well as a duty on local authorities to ensure Children’s participation in decisions that might affect them. We are the first country in the world to legislate in this way in relation to Children’s play. And many colleagues across the UK are looking at us with envy in their eyes.

The symposium was great. Baroness Delyth Morgan spoke about England’s progress, Marguerite Hunter Blair from Play Scotland gave her analysis of progress there and Patricia Lewsley gave us her perspective as Northern Ireland Commissioner for Children and Young People. It was really good as well to hear Maggie Atkinson, the new Children’s Commissioner for England, as she used this opportunity to speak publicly for the first time in her new role. A symposium report based on the discussions held will be available shortly for those who are interested.

But has the symposium helped to move all this forward? I can only answer that from a personal perspective. It has certainly helped me to sharpen my thinking and I have come away with a fresh resolve to work towards establishing a Wales which is open to children and comfortable with the idea that they can play in our streets and public spaces.

Those of you who know Mike Greenaway well from Play Wales will know that he is passionate about Children’s play. He is prone to real insight from time to time and at the symposium he was in good form.  “We are in serious danger of doing something wonderfully radical for children in Wales. Children can and should have the right to roam – you know, we could really make this happen in Wales.”

Mike is right but we have so got to have the confidence and the will to see this through. Our children won’t forgive us if we fail to take full advantage of the potential encapsulated within the Measure.

Children’s right to roam? Yes, without doubt. To be honest it’s what I enjoyed as a child. And do you know what? It didn’t do me any harm!