Which is the only country to protect in law the child’s right to play? | Aditya Chakrabortty

Wales has decided play is so vital that it needs to be supported by legislation. The rest of the UK should follow its lead

Child’s play: “An easy task,” sniff the dictionaries. “Something that is insignificant.” Such definitions are not only wrong – they are a danger. However messy and mucky and mysterious to the hovering adult, play is vital to the child. Yet most of the UK gives it no priority: councils shut hundreds of playgrounds, year after year; property developers throw up expensive boxes with as little green space as they can possibly get away with; and schools squeeze playtime to cram in more lessons. Who cares? It’s only child’s play! Under such a regime, play is treated as a luxury good, and we know what happens to luxuries: they become unaffordable to those without money.

But there is one giant exception. I came to Flintshire, in north Wales, to research a piece on food poverty. While delivering hot lunches to local playgroups, we pulled up at Quayplay, in Connah’s Quay, and walked straight into the organised pandemonium of 140 children at play. Over the slope were strewn bits of cardboard that had been ripped up and turned into sleds. Right up ahead was a yard full of children wielding saws and hammers and knocking together bits of wood. Plenty of adults could be seen over the site, but they gave the children all the space they needed. What were they making? A set for a horror game, explained one boy, kindly enough but with an air of abstraction. He had better things to do than humour visiting reporters.

Welsh law puts every blueprint for a new housing estate or bypass under scrutiny for how it will affect children’s play

Related: Britain’s politicians are ignoring child poverty. The result: it’s soaring | Dan Corry

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from Children | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2PtnLzm