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Play England
Catherine Prisk is assistant director of Play England,a charity whose mission is to restore play to the heart of urban design. Play England aims for all children and young people in England to have regular access to and opportunity for free,inclusive, local play provision and play space. This is an excerpt from our conversation.
BA I am interested in your stories. What is your experience? Do you think of yourself as a compassionate organization as I have defined? The fundamental purpose is to make a difference and that transforms the people there. Most people will never know what you have done. Is Play England a compassionate organization?
CP I would certainly say Play England is a compassionate organization and on the back of that it is a very happy one. It is a place where people like to be because they feel they are making a difference in the world. You only have to walk around our neighborhoods now where you can see new playgrounds.
Almost everybody has a story about walking past a new playground. My story is I cycle into work and cycle home. I have been doing this for eighteen months. There is a housing estate which has an old style playground outside it. We call it a kit fence playground. It has a fence around it and a bit of kit, a couple of swings, a springy chicken and a carpet which is a bit of plastic with a nasty surface which is cheap to maintain. I never saw a child there. I just assumed there were no children on that estate. Then they put in one of the new playgrounds which have mounds, hillocks and grass and wooden equipment around. It has a youth platform where kids can hang out and climbing frames. Because it is on grass it just feels a bit more natural.
It is absolutely seething with kids. They come from all over the place. And I know that that is one of the differences that we have made and that feels so good. It is so good to know that if we hadn’t been in existence, if we hadn’t written Design for Play and if we hadn’t had such a great relationship with the government that we wouldn’t have been able to say to them, “You should consider adopting Design for Play”, which they did.
They made it government guidance which means that all the local authorities follow this guidance in their procurement rules and we are there to help them with their procurement methodologies.
Now we are starting to see new playgrounds which children love. Particularly 8-14 year olds. Most playgrounds are only designed for little kiddies. That is all very well but what do 8-14 year olds do? They still want to clamber around and have a good time. So where do they go? They have nowhere to go. Read more (ebook or paperback).
[1] www.playengland.org
BA I am interested in your stories. What is your experience? Do you think of yourself as a compassionate organization as I have defined? The fundamental purpose is to make a difference and that transforms the people there. Most people will never know what you have done. Is Play England a compassionate organization?
CP I would certainly say Play England is a compassionate organization and on the back of that it is a very happy one. It is a place where people like to be because they feel they are making a difference in the world. You only have to walk around our neighborhoods now where you can see new playgrounds.
Almost everybody has a story about walking past a new playground. My story is I cycle into work and cycle home. I have been doing this for eighteen months. There is a housing estate which has an old style playground outside it. We call it a kit fence playground. It has a fence around it and a bit of kit, a couple of swings, a springy chicken and a carpet which is a bit of plastic with a nasty surface which is cheap to maintain. I never saw a child there. I just assumed there were no children on that estate. Then they put in one of the new playgrounds which have mounds, hillocks and grass and wooden equipment around. It has a youth platform where kids can hang out and climbing frames. Because it is on grass it just feels a bit more natural.
It is absolutely seething with kids. They come from all over the place. And I know that that is one of the differences that we have made and that feels so good. It is so good to know that if we hadn’t been in existence, if we hadn’t written Design for Play and if we hadn’t had such a great relationship with the government that we wouldn’t have been able to say to them, “You should consider adopting Design for Play”, which they did.
They made it government guidance which means that all the local authorities follow this guidance in their procurement rules and we are there to help them with their procurement methodologies.
Now we are starting to see new playgrounds which children love. Particularly 8-14 year olds. Most playgrounds are only designed for little kiddies. That is all very well but what do 8-14 year olds do? They still want to clamber around and have a good time. So where do they go? They have nowhere to go. Read more (ebook or paperback).
[1] www.playengland.org
