Cars crowding out children's play - BBC report

[roryer]

When I was a kid I went to the park.

How did you get there?

I quite often went down to the park, sometimes up to Foxes wood, or just down to the funky futuristic 1960's Lorne Garden's estate. We all travelled around the local area on bicycle or on foot. I had plenty of accidents too actually and was even broadsided by a car once, there were too many cars in the 1970's too, the problem is that instead of realising the problem in the 1970's we have continued to welcome more cars onto the road.

Time for a change if you ask me, we need to be reducing overall parking provision by 10% a year. And no more free parking on public land at all.

I understand from a political journalist, although I haven't personally checked, that the Labour party manifesto while in opposition stated a policy for charging out of town shopping centres and supermarkets for parking in order to help city centres which have good public transport access and local shops, after big donations from the major shopping chains this one was quietly forgotten.

 

[HackneyE9]

I understand from a political journalist, although I haven't personally checked, that the Labour party manifesto while in opposition stated a policy for charging out of town shopping centres and supermarkets for parking in order to help city centres which have good public transport access and local shops, after big donations from the major shopping chains this one was quietly forgotten.

Correcto-mondo. In return for Tesco sponsoring part of the Dome. Deal done by P. Mandelson.

 

[fredfelt]

Sorry a little off tangent but...

I saw Ruth Kelly on TV this weekend. Bloody hell she has her head in the sand (and up her own arse). With her as transport minister we can only look forward to the dominance of the car continuing unchecked and continued expansion in the number of flights.

She quoted the Eddington report which comes to the conclusion that in terms of economic progress expansion of private transport is necessary, and worth the associated costs.

From a lecture I went to the other day I learned that the costs quoted in the Eddington report are based on the Stern report. The Stern report puts a price on human life when factoring lives lost due to climate change in its cost benefit analysis. It seems that if human life had a greater price the Eddington report would not be able to come to the same conclusion. Then, just maybe Ruth Kelly would have to think again cars crowding out kids play, and cars crowding out just about every other factor of our lives.


Rorer, Hackney E9 – that’s interesting about out of town parking / Tesco. I heard about the policy and wondered what came of it.

 

[Cobbles]

"Unable to play outside, young people explore life through the screen of their computer games or DVDs, suggests the report."

What an abject pile of twaddle. Even if every home in the Uk was within 200M safe walking distance of some idyllic leafy glade then this report pre-supposes that kids actually want to get out and about as opposed to slaughtering aliens and hoods by the legion on their PC's.

Back in the 60's and 70's when I grew up, we were taught how to use roads safely by teachers who we respected and parents who disciplined us if we didn't abide by the rules.

The concept of "crowding out" is pure nonsense as we've never had more parks and public spaces in the UK and a far larger proportion of folk live in their own home with gardens front and rear - ideal playspaces if kids wanted to use them as oppose to voluntarily immerse themselves in a borrowed imagination bounded by the intellect of the games programmers and website developers whose kitchen appliance levels of social skills they prefer to assimilate.

 

[co-op]

"Unable to play outside, young people explore life through the screen of their computer games or DVDs, suggests the report."

What an abject pile of twaddle. Even if every home in the Uk was within 200M safe walking distance of some idyllic leafy glade then this report pre-supposes that kids actually want to get out and about as opposed to slaughtering aliens and hoods by the legion on their PC's.

To some extent it makes that presumption (ie that children want to go out and play) - it doesn't seem an unreasonable one to me so in the absence of intelligent arguments to the contrary I'll accept it.

However, what it definitely, actually says is that "unable to play outside, young people etc etc".

Your point is non-existent.

Back in the 60's and 70's when I grew up, we were taught how to use roads safely by teachers who we respected and parents who disciplined us if we didn't abide by the rules.

Blah blah blah harrumph national service harumph good old days harumph etc - what a pile of bullshit, save it for the golf club.

The concept of "crowding out" is pure nonsense as we've never had more parks and public spaces in the UK and a far larger proportion of folk live in their own home with gardens front and rear - ideal playspaces if kids wanted to use them

I'd disagree. The point is that we are talking about public space not the mini-gated communities that are back gardens. Children are no longer able to play easily and spontaneously with each other and learn to deal with the random and unexpected - eg neighbour's childrens who they might not like a whole lot but who they are going to have to learn to at least deal with. I have been lucky enough to live for many years first in Brixton and then in Stockwell where there has been public open grass space right in front of my house and I have seen just how valuable it is - but I have also flinched god knows how many times at the idiocy of drivers on the road between the houses and the play space. Unbelieveable near misses. As has also been pointed out at least a couple of times children are now quite literally "crowded out" by the sheer volume of parked cars in most streets.

as oppose to voluntarily immerse themselves in a borrowed imagination bounded by the intellect of the games programmers and website developers whose kitchen appliance levels of social skills they prefer to assimilate.

Harumph children not what they were, harumph good old days, harumph more gin, nurse. NURSE! Harumph.

 

[Cobbles]

The point is that we are talking about public space not the mini-gated communities that are back gardens.

Of which we have a lot more than there used to be in our urban environments.

It's a resource that kids only seem to want to use for the disposal of litter.

Kids clearly don't want to go out and have a game of Japs and Commandos any more - heaven forfend that they would want to indulge in anything competitive.......

 

[co-op]

- heaven forfend that they would want to indulge in anything competitive.......

I think you are talking out of your backside old boy.

I coach several different age groups football, from Year 1 to Year 6. They can really seriously get it out of proportion - losing an end-of-session training game which means nothing as soon as it is over (to us, as coaches) can clearly seem like the end of the world to them.

If you think young children don't like playing outside and don't like competitive games you clearly have nothing whatsoever to do with children and are taking your opinions from the Daily Mail or the pub or summat because it's all been middle-aged tory cliches so far.

In fact if you want to get back to cars, I'll get on my football coach's soapbox and tell you that one reason I think we produce fewer instinctively brilliant footballers these days in England is that street football no longer exists. Only 40 years ago I played and learnt my football playing on the street. There was a street in Stockwell where I used to see kids playing on the road until about 10 years ago (Tradescant Rd if anyone knows it - the bit with no house doors, just the garage and garden walls) - I used to point them out to people and ask them when did you last see that? But that's gone now, haven't seen it for years. There are - guess what! - cars parked nose-to-tail on both sides. Wicked games they were too - 10 a side played across the road - the pitch was 10 times as wide as long, talk about encouraging wingplay! Also, if you couldn't control the ball, turn and pull a trick and beat a man or two, you were going no where - the space was tiny. Plus there was a brilliant strand of street-bragging oneupmanship for the coolest trick, which took some nerve sometimes, cause if you failed or fell over you would be laughed out for the next 10 minutes.

As a pedestrian, you kind of had to run the gauntlet to get through them. Or saunter the gauntlet as we did, felt it was a bit undignified to scurry away from kids you know. Give them a moody stare if the ball hit you .

Where do kids learn football now? In back gardens with their Dads, or in controlled and organised sessions with FA approved drills...none of them replicate the chaos and craziness of the real game in the way the street game does.

 

[HackneyE9]

I think you are talking out of your backside old boy.

I coach several different age groups football, from Year 1 to Year 6. They can really seriously get it out of proportion - losing an end-of-session training game which means nothing as soon as it is over (to us, as coaches) can clearly seem like the end of the world to them.

If you think young children don't like playing outside and don't like competitive games you clearly have nothing whatsoever to do with children and are taking your opinions from the Daily Mail or the pub or summat because it's all been middle-aged tory cliches so far.

In fact if you want to get back to cars, I'll get on my football coach's soapbox and tell you that one reason I think we produce fewer instinctively brilliant footballers these days in England is that street football no longer exists. Only 40 years ago I played and learnt my football playing on the street. There was a street in Stockwell where I used to see kids playing on the road until about 10 years ago (Tradescant Rd if anyone knows it - the bit with no house doors, just the garage and garden walls) - I used to point them out to people and ask them when did you last see that? But that's gone now, haven't seen it for years. There are - guess what! - cars parked nose-to-tail on both sides. Wicked games they were too - 10 a side played across the road - the pitch was 10 times as wide as long, talk about encouraging wingplay! Also, if you couldn't control the ball, turn and pull a trick and beat a man or two, you were going no where - the space was tiny. Plus there was a brilliant strand of street-bragging oneupmanship for the coolest trick, which took some nerve sometimes, cause if you failed or fell over you would be laughed out for the next 10 minutes.

As a pedestrian, you kind of had to run the gauntlet to get through them. Or saunter the gauntlet as we did, felt it was a bit undignified to scurry away from kids you know. Give them a moody stare if the ball hit you .

Where do kids learn football now? In back gardens with their Dads, or in controlled and organised sessions with FA approved drills...none of them replicate the chaos and craziness of the real game in the way the street game does.

Good post.