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.