Streets closed to allow children to play outside.

[Meglet]

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 .

I kid you not. It's really depressing - they complained to the local police and now we all feel guilty for polluting the naice neighbourhood with noisy children. But I still do it anyway

I love the sound of kids playing out and about, running up and down giggling. Reminds me of when I was young! Huge groups of us playing kick the can etc. (I am turning into an old git myself, obviously).

this is a cute idea but doesn't really address the problem, in america the have signs that you can put up at the front of the street warning motorists to slow down as kids are playing!

complaining about them playing and involving the pcsos is really a step way too far! people are nuts

OOh germy I would love that sign. My neighbours heads would explode with rage, at 'kids playing'.

I dont know how I feel about this. I am (like someone posted up thread) under 30, and didn't really play out as a child-sometimes on holiday in a devon village but never at home. So I am not sure if I do see the need for kids to play out!

I wouldn't want my car to be out on the street and damaged by kids, insurance and repairs are expensive. I also wouldnt want noise late at nigt, I still put my kids to bed at 7.

That said the idea of having fitter children appeals, I do worry about childhood obesity and our lifestyles all being so sedantry. I also think kids are micromanaged, chauffered to too many activities, or spend too much time loitering in shopping centres.

I would prefer children playing on 'recs' or greens or parks but I suppose in many areas these just aren't available.

Thanks for this, I think it's a great idea too, have text a couple of neighbours with kids to see what they think!

I am very happy for these types of things to happen, as long as they go through official chanels.

My street always has children playing out on it. It's not a cul-de-sac but neither is it a direct route to anywhere. Also, children crowd out the traffic by sheer weight of numbers, cars can only drive slowly as there are usually 5 or 10 children in the 200m of road at any given time. There's a great sense of community, and despite a plethora of ball games, no broken windows (it's actually quite hard to smash double glazed windows).
My DCs got planks and bricks from our garage and made ramps for their bikes last holidays, and I've been drafted in for emergency bike maintenance on occasion!
The national trust is campaigning for "free range childhood", my DCs have made good inroads on the 50 things to do before you're 11, but then I'm clearly a negligent parent, I let my DCs (10&8) go out on their bikes all day, shout them in for food every few hours, let them forage local roadside trees for fruit etc. surely that's part of growing up, learning appropriate behaviour in public and solving problems for yourself?

Come to think about it you see those signs (slow down kids playing) on some streets in ireland. Just realised have never seen one here (am Irish but live in England). Mind you kids play less pom the street in ireland these days too.

Some of you live in fab places Where do I find these streets??

Yes donttry, we could move there.

I think it's a great idea. The children aren't unsupervised, so risk of damage to cars is minimised. I remember staying with friends in The Netherlands who lived on a modern estate where cars were parked in separate areas a minute's walk from the houses so that children could play safely outside. Totally fab idea - I wish this was the norm in this country.

I live in Sale, near Manchester, but grew up on a housing estate in West London, we still found spaces to play. It's more about community attitudes to children's play than location IMO.

I don't know InMySpareTime parking is terrible around here, there are cars everywhere and it is busy with cars whizzing up and down all the time, going fast. Community attitude can make a difference of course, but there would have to be a concerted effort like in that street in Bristol with the road officially being cordoned off.

Not quite the same, but I live in an apartment complex in Asia which has a traffic free area running along the front of the apartment towers, and the kids all play out on their bikes/ scooters/ with footballs etc. It's so nice to see. Noise like that doesn't bother me. That said, we don't have light evenings here, so they're all in by 8 latest.

It does mean that people interact more as well, because the mums/dads go down to get the kids and then chat to one another.

My dc's 7, 6 and 5 play out all day when it's nice only coming in for food and the loo when needed. Sometimes an hour passes and I just remember to peep outside and see what's going on.

They love it, they built a snail house yesterday up the road and are currently keeping 22 snails in it They ride their bikes, skateboards, heelys basically anything with wheels. I do ask them to stay within a certain area most times but don't really mind if they wander, they will always come back.

Toys are left scattered all over the neighbourhood that have to be collected up at the end of the day but some are always left out and bought back by a neighbour at some point.

I will really, really miss this when we move!

There are lots of kids very visibly playing out in our village. The stream over the road from my house is very dammable and the woods are perfect for dens. We have a cricket pitch which is lovely but no playground which is a bit of a bummer.

The road outside my house is appalling though; it's a 30 mph limit but people hoon up and down at 50. And it's right next to a school as well :-( We have lost a cat to the road, as have many of our neighbours.

Whilst I don't think we need to physically cordon off roads in my village, I have spent the last three years muttering about sending letters to the council complaining about the lack of traffic calming in the village and this article has given me the impetus to actually do it.

I think I might even start a petition

I would hate this. Sorry I know that sounds awful. The children on my street at the moment "play" all day from 9am - 9pm which is fine. Except for the constant screaming to the point where it sounds like someone is hurt. And the kid that damaged my car, and all I got was a mouthful of abuse off the parents
I work nights, my bedroom backs on to the road and I find myself lying there praying for an hour of peace. They all have gardens which are never used, there's a field about 50m up the road. I played out when I was younger but if I had made that much noise I would have been dragged in. I have to watch tv with subtitles on because I can't hear it over the roller blades, footballs, screaming etc. and I can't open the window in the bedroom in summer as then I can't sleep even with earplugs

I am not in favour of children playing out the front as then I can't put my car in the driveway without worry ing whether the windows will be smashed. Anyway who looks out for the children? Their parents will be too busy indoors watching the tv/ going on mumsnet.

I'm trying to think back to my youth. We always had footballs out the front and they would bounce off a car every so often (and we'd get yelled at) but IIRC nothing was ever broken.

We broke a window playing basketball though, it was a very small window thank goodness.

All the houses in our road had driveways though so the road was empty and we could charge about. New estates don't really have driveways or front gardens.

Given that broken windows seems a common concern with DCs playing out, has anyone here actually had their window broken by a football?
I don't even remember it happening when I was young and windows were single glazed. It featured in children's TV a lot, perhaps that's why?

Wow what's all this about kids damaging cars? As I said up thread the kids in our village are out playing every afternoon and at weekends, but I have never, ever heard of anyone's car being damaged (most are parked on drives but some on the street, including one of ours - never remotely had an issue - it is a village where everybody knows everybody's business - we all heard when somebody's cat got into somebody else's house and knocked some prized china plates down, so we would have heard on the grape vine if a child damaged a car). Nor have I heard of anything else being damaged... we are talking about kids playing, not anything sinister.. I guess there is the possibility of a stray football, or somebody falling off their bike onto a parked car maybe but honestly how are they damaging/ potentially damaging cars???

Inmysparetime kind of a cross post there :o

germy here in Germany you also see "voluntary 30km ph " speed limit signs with children playing stated as the reason, and pics of cartoon kids on the brightly coloured signs - wouldn't say people stick religiously to them but they do usually slow a bit from the 50km ph that is the usual residential are limit.

I said about cars being damaged. Mine has been, the police were involved because we tried to have a rational conversation with the parent and it didn't end well. Our road is such that my parking space (numbered) isn't outside my house. Said child kicks a heavy football at my car for hours and also bikes/scooters get dragged past it. There were 50 marks documented on it, all on one side.
I have a new car now that I've saved up for, today it is covered in football marks in the dust where a football has been repeatedly slammed against it
I think fair enough playing in the streets if you live in a decent neighbourhood. If you don't, it's a lot harder

And no never had my window broken by a football but my neighbours asked a teenager to stop kicking a football against their garage. He came back and shot their window out within air rifle