Written question WQ87171

The Welsh Government recognises the importance of maximising opportunities for play. Both the Welsh Government and the playwork sector in Wales aspire to provide inclusive play spaces, including playgrounds, where able-bodied and disabled children and young people can play together.

Our Planning Policy Wales (PPW) guidance sets out an overarching national policy framework and a basis for more detailed local planning policies. The policies in PPW emphasise the importance of making play areas accessible and providing them in well-located places.

To support improvement in accessibility of play spaces the Welsh Government funded Play Wales, the Charity supporting children’s play, who worked with Alison John and Associates to develop the creating accessible play spaces toolkit. The toolkit is intended to support local authorities and others to meet the requirements of the Equality Act 2010 in terms of developing and upgrading accessible play spaces.

As part of the Children and Families (Wales) Measure 2010, the Welsh Government legislated in support of children’s play. A statutory duty was placed on local authorities to assess and, as far as is reasonably practicable, secure sufficient opportunities for children to play. This has become known as the ‘Play Sufficiency Duty’, and local authorities are encouraged to use the creating accessible play spaces toolkit in preparing both their assessments and action plans under this duty.

Since the Play Sufficiency Duty was introduced in November 2012, we have made over £34m revenue funding available to local authorities to enable them to meet the requirements highlighted by their Play Sufficiency Assessments. For the financial years 2020-2021 and 2021-2022, a total of £8m capital funding was made available to local authorities. This enabled local authorities to improve access to play areas and replenish play areas, including the purchase of accessible equipment.

A summary of the local authority 2022 Play Sufficiency Assessments, including information about opportunities to play for disabled children to access outdoor play spaces, will be published by Play Wales later this year.