Playground staff say they are fighting 'tooth and nail' to stay open

Charities running staffed adventure playgrounds say they are fighting "tooth and nail" to stay open for children and their families.

But operators of some of the specialised spaces, often based in lower-income communities, are fearful for the future due to financial pressures and funding.

At The Big Swing Adventure Playground in Bradford, six-year-old Benny is busy scaling a wooden fort before throwing himself on to a pile of crash mats below.

Watching on his dad, Bledar, says "there should be more places like this" for children, as Benny runs back to tell him he has just jumped off "the highest level".

But, for many playgrounds like this one - which also provides arts and crafts, water areas and sand pits - funding is getting harder to secure, along with the rising cost of running the site.

The government has committed £18m through its Playground Fund to "reopen lost play spaces" as well as protecting playgrounds through its planning rules.

While welcome, Play Bradford, which runs The Big Swing, wants them to go further by securing those community hubs with a focus on play.

Th Big Swing serves around 6,000 children a year and costs about £230,000 to run annually.

The funding it receives varies each year, depending on the type of grants available and the outreach projects it runs, in addition to the playground costs.

Staff like Victoria Lawford are worried that, unless they can get hold of extra funding to pay playworker's wages, they won't be open by next summer.

"We have 30 or 40 children coming here every session," she says.

"Where are they going to end up if we close? They might end up just wandering round the streets, getting into mischief."

The playgrounds bring together children from diverse backgrounds, abilities, and socioeconomic groups, where they can explore new friendships.

Free hot meals are provided during school holidays and the site also runs a pantry service.

Natalie's son Reggie climbs onto the "big, massive swing" which makes him feel "happy" - the centrepiece that led to the naming of this playground.

"If this place shuts down I don't know what we'll do," she says. "I bring my grandson here too, and the workers are amazing with them [both]."

As Kaja waits for her turn on the swing, her mum Nyarai says "it's a dream, being outdoors, being free" and points out that the children are "using their brains to try and figure things out".

Britain saw a rise in makeshift adventure playgrounds after World War Two, with many born out of bomb sites.

Children were given tools and bits of wood and scrap metal to build whatever they wanted to play with, using their imagination and taking responsibility of their space.

At its height there were more than 700 adventure playgrounds across the country. That number is now down to 120.

Dr Mike Wragg from Play Bradford helped set up The Big Swing in the Eccleshill area of the city more than 20 years ago.

Wragg says playgrounds are needed more than ever now, because the way previous generations played is being "eroded over time" and the pressures facing young people are now far greater.

"It's a long held belief that if children cannot play in the way they need to, then harm will come to them - developmentally, emotionally, psychologically," Wragg says.

Wragg, who also lectures in Childhood Development and Playwork at Leeds Beckett University, is hoping the government will bring back a National Play Strategy.

Prime Minister Andy Burnham helped launch one in 2008, when he was part of the Labour government of the time, but it was stopped in 2010 by the incoming coalition government.

Labour MP Tom Hayes leads the All Party Parliamentary Group on Play, an informal cross-party group set up last year with MPs and members of the House of Lords.

He says a strategy is needed "which moves beyond good intentions to a lasting national commitment".

The government said it recognises that every child deserves the space to run around, and the vital importance of play as part of a child's development.

It added that funding of more than £200m a year will go to to local authorities to deliver holiday activity and food programmes across the country.

Funding remains the biggest challenge for the Old Quarry Adventure Playground in Knottingley, otherwise known as The Addy.

It's been supporting children for over 50 years, after miners moved to the area in the 1970s and started raising families.

Their children would go down to the quarry to play, and over time it became a safe place for them to be.

Centre manager Holly Corbett says the role they play has grown over the years, because other local services, like Sure Start Centres, have closed down.

The Addy hosts mums-to-be groups, children's parties as well as a pensioners lunch clubs, to bring in extra money but Holly says funding the space is always challenge.

"We fight tooth and nail every single year. We're incredibly resourceful.

"We beg, we borrow, we get creative. But the truth is, passion doesn't always pay wages, does it?"

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