When Tom Smith and his wife moved to a village five miles outside Oxford they thought they had found an ideal place to bring up children.
“There were children out in the street playing all the time – with balls, making ramps for their skateboards. It brought back memories of our own childhoods with hours spent playing outside. That was 12 years ago. But things began to change.
“We lost our bus service during the cuts [under chancellor George Osborne]. That contributed to the growing traffic which got worse as housing pressures pushed people out of Oxford into villages. Then came the rise in delivery drivers, the worst offenders for speeding. Now the idea of children being out on this street is sadly inconceivable.”
When the Guardian community desk asked “Do your children face problems playing outside” some of the hundreds of replies talked about officious warnings from councils or angry neighbours. But most focused on one thing – cars.
Emma Wreyford lives in Bristol with her daughter, who has just turned 11.
“It should be such a lovely age for that sort of outdoor play but it is almost impossible. Here the car is king and public space is there for the rights of the driver to use to store their cars.
“Children around here don’t know each other because there are no front gardens and no safe places on the doorstep. I never see them outside unless they are going somewhere.”
She tries to fight back by organising play streets when cars move to allow children out. “They are so well received and not just by children. Older residents bring their chairs out and sit and chat, or join in the chalking on the roads. It’s always such a joyful, community feel that then disappears as soon as the cars come whizzing back as the road opens again.”
Like many parents she worries even more about where her child will play as she gets older. “Once they are 12 they are seen as yobs aren’t they? There’s nowhere for them to go.”
Figures from a Yougov/ Living Streets poll show that 60% of children in the UK aged four to 11 never play on their own street, and the change has come in a generation across many parts of the UK.
Poppy is 49 and grew up in Brighton and is now bringing up her own son there. “I grew up in a suburban area on a fairly busy road. But we knew all the children within 100 metres including other roads nearby. We’d all play out on our bikes, pogo sticks, collecting insects and worms, playing 44 save-all, all ages together until teatime.
“But now outside is the realm of cars. The pavement is narrow and boxed in by them, children can’t play near them in case they get damaged. When my son was younger we’d often go out to do chalk drawings or kick a foam football. We could hear the children playing in their back gardens, squealing with delight on their trampolines, but we never saw them!”
She points out the loss of freedom for parents that this brings as well. “Now play dates have to be arranged in advance between adults. I can’t say ‘go out and play!’ like my parents said to my sister and me … with who? Where? Streets full of cars, pavements covered in dog poo.”
Traffic on residential roads has increased more across the UK than it has on A and B roads in recent years. And the number of cars sold in the UK increased by 26% year on year in February.
Claire has lived in Uddingston near Glasgow for 20 years during which time she has seen children vanish from public spaces.
“I always compared my older son’s lack of independent play to mine growing up because I played out for hours while he had much less of that. But compared to my youngest two children – there is a 10-year gap – he was living the dream.
“There is no outdoor play now unless I am involved. We have a park nearby but the volume of traffic running through our street has tripled. We never see any children playing outside.”
Even in densely built cities with a rich tradition of outdoor play, parents report silent streets. Michelle Roach lives in Everton in Liverpool. “In areas like Anfield, deprived communities with back-to-back terraces, I never see a child outside.
“I am 36 and as a child we played out all the time and they were the best time of our lives. We played out morning, noon to early night.”
Her friend Naomi Maynard points out the wider degradation of children’s spaces. “In lockdown the majority of play equipment in our local park was removed but has still not been replaced.
“My children are four and nine. I would not let them play out on our road unsupervised – cars do not keep to the 20 miles-an-hour speed limit, there is glass on the pavements and dog poo, and drug dealing is taking place in cars on our road.”
In Oxfordshire, Tom Smith has joined with neighbours to try to make streets safer. He says: “Recently, a group of parents has been trying to get a 20mph speed limit imposed, but some residents regard the loss of liberty as too high a price to pay for children’s welfare.”
More traffic is coming, with new greenbelt developments around Oxford. “How child friendly will these developments really be?” Smith asks. “County council proposals to make some developments car free have been robustly pushed back by developers and college landowners alike.
“This loss of children’s play is clearly a widespread problem that government is either unaware of, or has no intention of doing anything about.”
