A lot of playgrounds will not re-open on 4th July

[Missmidden]

I am a member of my local parish council and have spent much of the last few days arguing with my fellow councillors over the government guidance for the re-opening of playgrounds. However I have just lost the battle and our village playground will remain shut, which I am very unhappy about. My understanding is that many other parish and town council run playgrounds will take the same approach.

The reason for this is that the guidance is complex and vague, but when read by cautious people has been interpreted as unworkable. For example, it requires frequent sanitation of all touch areas which, for a small playground with no paid staff is not possible.

For reference, our parish council has responsibility for various allotments, park and roadside benches and gates crossing footpaths. There has been no guidance that these need regular cleaning despite being obvious "touch points". So it seems that children lose out once again from overly onerous guidance.

When the government announced that playgrounds were to open there was no mention of the guidance stopping this for many, so I fully expect there to be a great deal of anger when this news gets out, quite possibly directed at parish councillors like myself.

My request is for anyone who cares about this to e-mail your MP, local councils and anyone else to make your feelings known. I have done my best locally and contacted my own MP, but believe we need more noise about this nationally if there is any chance of the guidance being changed so that playgrounds can re-open as soon as possible.

Oh that is so disappointing. We live in a small village and our playground plus the ones in the surrounding villages will possibly be affected as I’m sure lots are parish run.

I am expecting a baby any day but will try to get an email to MP together while I wait for labour to commence!

My dp oversees all play areas in our area and is not opening them on July 4th.

. For example, it requires frequent sanitation of all touch areas

With that rule I can't see how very many at all can open! How often is frequent?!

We have a smallish playground on our estate but it isn't staffed and it is voluntary checked over by the management group, a voluntary unpaid group. I haven't heard if it is opening or not but can't see how it can if someone has to staff it to clean it often.

None of our council playgrounds are manned. There is no way waiting to stand and clean the equipment all day. So how could they open?!

Yet again it seems like there's the headline grabber statement but then guidance behind the scenes that makes it almost impossible.

How frequent is “frequent”? I tried to argue that once a day cleaning would do as it’s normally never cleaned and volunteered to do that myself, but to no avail.

I don’t know what our local park is doing but if it isn’t ‘opened’ I will just climb over the gate with my DS. As I am sure many others will.

It's an interesting anomaly that Scotland's playgrounds opened yesterday, despite Scotland taking a considerably more cautious approach than England in most other aspects of easing lockdown.
Loads of families enjoying our local playground today.

well knowing what they are like round here i can see why !
never any cleaning takes place, kids running around with food everywhere spilling it all over the place and parents not able to grab a wipe and clean it up so i would doubt it's going to be any cleaner now !
And well if its transmitted on surfaces then it would need cleaned much more often than once a day and lets be honest how many parks are manned never mind have cleaners !

Interesting re Scotland! Will take a look at that guidance.

And I quite agree that a lot will use them regardless- which will lead to a lot of arguments in person and on FB!

in the netherlands playgrounds never closed.
imo exercise for children is extremely important for physical and mental wellbeing.

would your council agree for a neighbourhood association to 'adopt' a playground as monitor?

How can we find out about this locally?

I imagine googling your local playground would tell you who runs it. But parish and town councils are the main ones for typical local play parks I believe.

Sorry, I mean you could then contact them to ask about their plans.

Oh FGS. How annoying. The poor kids are just so desperate for somewhere to play. Thanks for sharing this info - I'll definitely write to my MP.

I think people will just let children play on them and should. If the council cba to follow instructions it’s their negligence.

Yeah just had a look on local council website and it says:

“Playgrounds and outdoor gym facilities have been closed following government guidance.

In response to the government easing the lockdown restrictions we are gradually reopening:

Skateparks
Athletic tracks
Outdoor bowls
Tennis and other ball courts
These services will open as staff resources are deployed and safety implications are met.”

Doesn’t sound like play areas are included does it?

Went past a small local playground in a tiny park near me at the weekend and children were on the play equipment. Looked like someone had made a gap in the barrier to let them in.

No mention of play areas on our council website. At least they've kept the parks themselves open, unlike some.

And I met this renegade slide, today.

I have highlighted to my parish council that a lot will use anyway. But it has a fairly high fence and currently locked gate, so it takes quite a bit of effort!

I for one will be heading to other parks that are more open and just have easily removed bits of tape

Oh no, our local one is Local Authority run apparently.
Considering glass can be left for days til a volunteer gets rid of it, I doubt anyone will be cleaning it.
My children are going to be disappointed - I don't drive so having the park open to them would have made a big difference to our summer.

I just checked for Scotland and the guidance there is just social distancing and advice to clean hands before and after use. So sensible and incomprehensible that England’s is so different and impossible to implement!

That’s appalling, we definitely must lobby MPs about it

eh? I don't have children this age anymore but that makes no sense. Pubs open but not playgrounds??

My kids are too old for playgrounds but at this point I 'd just be breaking in,

Local playground in a small village here and not opening. The logic is that it is beside the school and that means all the hard work the school has done with keeping children in bubbles will be ruined once they leave as they will mingle with other bubbles and other children. It’s a lovely playground but in the current climate probably has the capacity for at most half a dozen children (exc parents who would need to be carefully distancing) but the norm before lockdown was for it to be packed with 50+ children at peak times.

Whilst I wish our children weren’t missing out on so much, I can agree with the logic for our playground to remain closed for now.

My 2 year old has waited long enough and I’ve told her she can go to the park next week. Ours don’t have fences round them and to be honest, lots of other people have been using them for weeks. I will be going next week anyway, armed with a cloth and a bottle of dettol and will wipe the blasted things down myself!