Streets closed to allow children to play outside.

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Reclaiming the streets for kids

I love this idea, temporary road closures so children can play out again. We we lucky enough to live in a cul-de-sac so were always allowed out in the 1980's.

The mum in the article is quite right in saying the park isn't an answer as you have to trek back and forth and get back for supper. At least the parents can get things done at home if children are playing out the front together. We live on a rat run so I can't put the kids out the front .

Yes but playing out is just a normal thing for kids to do. Kids round here all play out

I think the ideal is for kids to be able to play out all the time. i live in a street like the one in the article though, so it would have to be engineered. And this is the reality in a lot (most?) places usualsuspect

Lovely to hear there are some of you living in places where the kids still play out. Am moving soon and dream of finding a street like this. Any of you in Sussex??

Not in my experience, I've never lived anywhere where kids don't play out.

The point of the article is that Bristol is a very busy city and the roads aren't safe to let small children wander about in between parked cars. With the road closed they can do, there is lots of support from the other residents and the council is considering allowing up to 2 week closures.

Anything that encourages parents to let their children play out is a good thing though.

I'm not sure traffic is the only reason some parents don't allow their children to play out though.

To many thoughs in that post

It wouldn't work in our street, there is nowhere else to park the cars.

We live in a Victorian terrace, very unfamily friendly.

Very jealous of the areas a lot of you live in.

We live in a Victorian terrace and the roads are extremely narrow which means that drivers can't go any faster than 2mph. This means that children play out all the time and are in and out of each others houses all the time too. This, in turn, has forced parents to get to know each other and has fostered a real sense of community. It is like the 1950s and is lovely.

Bonnie if you look at the photo, you'll see the cars are all parked on the street. I think the point is that it anyone driving on or out of the street during the designated time is directed in by a warden, and must drive slowly.

usualsuspects then you have been very lucky. In Brighton/London where i have lived you never see kids playing out and I never see it either when I drive around surrounding area. It is tragic.

I can only assume they don't have gardens

But that's the point Bonnie, the cars aren't moved out. If residents need to move their cars during the playing out session, one of the parent volunteers shepherds them out.

The reason ds doesn't play out as much as I'd like is a) the traffic/parked cars b) there are no other children out there so he gets bored! Both would be solved by this.

I don't think the organisers see this as necessarily a permanent arrangement, the idea is to reintroduce the people/children living in the houses as the priority in the streets, rather than the cars. I live in a Victorian terrace as well, and surely they are potentially very family-friendly?

Metallimi I don't think that is the point (though I might be wrong. With a garden you either play just with your siblings or have to invite someone over to play, and it is private space.

We did this not long ago - basically you just give all the residents advance warning that they won't be able to move their cars between those few hours.
Everybody was really supportive.
The kids absolutely loved it.
They sat on the kerb a lot of the time doing street art with chalks.

I'm lucky enough to live on a close where the neighbours petitioned the council not to have our large green area turned into parking bays so that the kids could play. It's lovely seeing the kids playing footie in the middle of it with no cars to worry about :) We're hoping they'll whack a hole through the window of the bloody huge campervan that's decided to park at the bottom the past week as the PCSOs won't do anything about it

I'm hoping to move to somewhere similar once I have my own children (in a share house now!) but I love the idea. The only problem is the parking, as for many people cars are a necessity and they do need to be parked somewhere.

So how would it work then, at the weekends?

I was just saying to dh that I feel really sad that our boys don't have the same freedom that we had as children. Closing the road is a start but it really isn't the same, the lack of spontaneity just puts a dampner on it for me.

No bonnie it isn't the same. But it's something. It changes things because the children on the street get to know each other, and the adults are more likely to see each other too. For all I know, you live on the same street as me...

I do do things like sit on a chair outside the house, and leave the door open when I am pottering within reach, but not nearly often enough to make a difference.

I haven't read the full Manual on the website yet but I might have a chat with my friend in the next street and see what she thinks. Her son is one of the few who occasionally does play football behind her house.

That road seems to be cluttered up with cars. Shame they are allowed to block the road like that.

Sounds a great idea. I'm very lucky that our house backs onto a big park and we all have gates at the end of the garden going into the park. All the kids round here meet there after school and at weekends. It's lovely. This isn't leafy sussex either, it's south london. One of the reasons why we decided to extend rather than move

I live in a German city and there has been a scheme here for a few years. I think it started with funding from the EU or something. They put out some play things, different kinds of tricycles, stilts and other things. Parking is not allowed in the street at the time. Ther is some criticism, some residents complain of noise, others say it is hardly used by children at all(which makes me wonder who is making the noise then?) but on the whole it is great and we love going.

Wouldn't work in our street. There is only one other child around my DDs age and the loathe each other for some reason.

I think this is an excellent idea. Like a couple of the others we also live in a very ugly cul de sac house but I wouldn't want to live anywhere else. There are our two plus the children of 3 other families and they all play out together come rain or shine, splashing in puddles, riding bikes and scooters, chalking the pavements, making dens etc. They have so much freedom and It would be so nice if all children could have this at least sometimes.

We live in the wrong Cul de Sac. We moved here 4 years before having children, so it wasn't a consideration.
Everybody is lovely but the majority are the sort that wash their cars every day and manicure their lawns with nail scissors.

There are about 6 of us with children and when they do play out there is eye rolling and cat's bum mouths. One stands in the window with his hands on his hips shouting at them. And they come out to tell them to 'mind the car'.

We live in the same sort of cul de sac as sparklingbrook. The last time some children dared to play football in the street (no damage done, no cars hit, no flowers flattened), we had a visit from two PCSO's a week or so later asking questions about gangs of feral youths causing chaos with their out of control football-based riots. The kids were 8 and 6 and perfectly polite, it's just a shame we live surrounded by grumpy old g*ts.

'Feral youths' Dolly.

I got the DC a foam football so there was no thump, thump, thump. But the miserable hands on hips in window guy told them to be quieter.