In his Treatise on Parents and Children, George Bernard Shaw wrote:

‘Of the many wild absurdities of our existing social order perhaps the most grotesque is the costly and strictly enforced reservation of large tracts of country as deer forests and breeding grounds for pheasants whilst there is so little provision of the kind made for children.’

He was speaking in 1910, and the context very obviously belongs to its time. But the point still stands.

People fight passionately to preserve our countryside, our wildlife, and our environment.  But when it comes to spaces for young people, we seem to sit on the fence.

The way in which children and young people spend their free time today is radically different from Shaw’s generation, and ours too.

Rapid urban development, combined with the 21^st century climate of fast-developing technology, communications, and celebrity icons, are all influencing the past-times of the younger generation.

Instead of getting out in the park, having a game of football, and knocking on doors in their neighbourhood to get other children out to play – as we did when I was young – young people are meeting up virtually on social networking websites, talking from their bedrooms on mobile phones, or sat in the living room playing on a games console or watching TV.

And that’s transformed the way our communities look too.

Perceptions of 21^st century childhood, and what children and young people like to do, have perhaps caused us to leave more traditional recreation untended. 

But, as we’ve seen in the video, children want to play outside, with their friends, in an exciting and stimulating environment.

But typically, visible groups of young people in public spaces are frowned upon or feared by the public.

Private land, busy streets, and urban sprawl are encroaching on children’s space.

We’re paving our communities, but ‘kerbing’ play.

We need to reclaim public spaces for young people.

That is what our draft Play Strategy ‘Fair Play’ is trying to achieve. We’ll be spending £235 million over the next 3 years on play areas shaped by local people – including parents and young people themselves – for local children.

We’ve committed to invest £7.5m in the play workforce, including access to Level 3 qualifications for 4,000 play workers starting from autumn 2008.

And we’ll ensure that all children – whatever their age, ability or background – will have access to those facilities and can make the most of them.

Local authorities receiving play capital funding to develop play areas will be required to make those areas accessible to disabled children, for example, so that all children can feel the benefits of these reforms, and make the most of their local communities.

Enabling this access will mean local authorities thinking about how children come and go to play areas, and how public space more generally could be more accessible for play.

As chapter 5 of fair play sets out, we want to see the people that shape, make and manage public space locally thinking about children’s needs, working together within their children’s trusts and local strategic partnerships to create child-friendly communities.

I want to take this opportunity to thank Play England, and the NCB, for their involvement in this agenda, and for their help in developing the Play Strategy.

If this country is to be the best place in the world for young people to grow up, we need to shape our communities around our children.

And I don’t think we’ve quite got that balance right yet.

Perceptions of young people are overwhelmingly negative. In the media, 70% of coverage on young people is negative.

But the majority of young people are law-abiding, community-minded, and just want to get on with what they’re doing – achieve, succeed, and have fun.

On the whole young people are not to be feared, and we’ve got to challenge those misconceptions.

Getting young people off the street corners, into organised activities at the local park, youth club, or sports facilities gives them space – and a real place – in their community.

That’s why, last month, we announced Myplace – a £190m programme to develop world class youth facilities in this country.

Young people should be able to make the most of their communities. And parents should feel confident about letting their children do that.

Parents face a difficult balancing act:

We need to do everything we can to keep our children safe. But we also have to be realistic about the risks that children face.

Actually, perceived risk can be just as dangerous.

I can understand some parents’ reactions to seeing a group of teenagers playing on the swings in the park might make them apprehensive about letting their toddler play in the same area.

That’s why we need safe, high-quality, designated areas for young people to play, which are suitable for the particular age range to which it caters.

I can understand parents being worried about sending their children out to play unsupervised.

That’s why we need good community policing, road safety education and a reliable, qualified play workforce.

And I can understand parents being wary of letting their children walk miles to the local park unsupervised.

That’s why we need public spaces and recreational areas planned around housing.

It’s a difficult balance to strike as a parent.

Too much protection and we risk stifling children’s creativity and freedom to explore and develop; too much freedom and we can lose our grip.

But our response must not be to decide to keep children indoors. Not only would they be shut off from the joys of a bit of unstructured play with their friends, which children say is very important to them.

They would also be prevented from vital exercise.

But I think that the combination of busy streets, urban development, negative media perceptions of young people and parental worry have all combined to keep young people cooped up, rather than out in the fresh air.

But when did we decide, as a country, that it was a good idea to raise a generation of battery farmed kids, rather than free-range ones?

The consequences of keeping our children holed up inside – whether that’s because we’re worried about their safety, because the community doesn’t have obvious safe places to play, or because our children simply prefer to sit at their computers or on their phones – are serious.

Poor health, a lack of resilience, even obesity, are risks that our young people don’t need to be exposed to.

We need to get them up off the sofa, away from the TV, and out in the fresh air.

In January we launched a cross government strategy to tackle obesity – Healthy Weight, Healthy Lives – which places an emphasis on children and young people. It includes a section on ‘building activity into our daily lives.’

If we’re to fulfil those commitments, giving people space to exercise and helping them to instil healthy habits is crucial.

With safe places to play, well-planned and maintained public spaces and a professional play workforce, parents can let their children out to play, get in the habit of exercising with their friends, and take the calculated risks that build resilience.

For young people, what just seems like fun free time will be doing them a whole world of good.

Everybody needs to take responsibility, and play a part in that transformation – from parents to planning officers to police.

We’ve made real progress in making our streets safer for young people, by creating more cycle routes, raising road safety awareness, and reducing the number of injuries and fatalities caused by traffic accidents.

They are important achievements, and Jim will be talking more about the Department of Transport’s work to make our roads safer for children and young people in just a moment.

But it is also about good planning, so that children and young people – and the spaces in which they live, learn and play – are at the forefront of our minds as we shape the services and the landscapes in our local communities.

Talking to each other more. Joining up what we do between different departments.

In central government, my department is working closely with Jim’s, Communities and Local Government, the Department of Health,  the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, and others, to include a stronger focus on suitable spaces to play in the planning system:

Continuing to improve our parks and public spaces.

Cross-professional training for people who design and manage our public spaces.

And putting play at the heart of flagship developments, such as eco-towns, Healthy Towns, and Olympic projects.

That joined up planning and working needs to be mirrored at local level too.

When planning housing provision, local authorities also need to plan designated, high quality recreational areas so that children have space to play near their home.

When planning community space, planners and designers need to consider what is conducive to young people and their needs.

When planning transport routes, children’s safety should be paramount, as should a regard for places to play.

Children’s wellbeing is not just a job for children’s services. Place shapers and decision-makers in local authorities can have a real hand in supporting sustainable and cohesive communities.

It was plain to see from the video-clip, not only how strongly young people feel about having good places to play, but they also have extremely good ideas about what they want from their playgrounds and community spaces.

We need to make sure we’re listening to children and parents, and involving them in the decision-making process.

That’s why today I’m delighted to launch a new web tool, designed for young people between the ages of 8 and 13 to create their ideal play space.

And we’ll also be holding a competition for budding young artists to send in pictures of what a great play area looks like to them, alongside their answers to some of the questions we’ve asked in our consultation.

I will be very interested to see what they come up with, and hopefully some of their designs will be realised in their own communities.

We need to continue the national debate about play – something we will do through our consultation.

We will be holding a series of regional events to listen to the views of people across the country, representing a broad range of interests, as we have here today.

Sustrans, NCB and Play England will be important partners as we take this work forward.

I believe that the challenge here is one of culture change, and communication.

If we get it right, we will inspire a nation of creative, independent, free-range kids, who make the most of their communities, their talents and, most importantly, their childhood. 

Thank you.