Play Isn’t a Place. It’s the Whole Plan.

In this episode of Play Attention, we sit down with Scott Chalmers, Head of Green Infrastructure at Urban&Civic, to challenge the assumption that play belongs in a designated, fenced-off area.

Drawing on years of experience delivering large-scale communities, Scott shares why play should never be “dropped in” to meet planning requirements, but embedded from the very first moment of design.

From removing fences and rethinking risk, to creating landscapes that invite people to stay, dwell, and connect, this conversation explores what happens when play is the foundation, not an afterthought.

You’ll hear:

• Why play space should be an open canvas, not a box to tick
• The reason fencing dominates playground design, and why it often points to a problem in the design process
• How nature, landscape, and play can work together to build stronger communities
• The commercial case for play, and why better spaces actually drive value
• What developers, planners, and designers need to do differently to raise the standard everywhere

Find out More:

Urban&Civic

Priors Hall Park

Play Attention is a podcast from Timberplay - exploring the thinkers, designers and changemakers shaping the future of play.

Hosted by Beth Cooper, Independent Play Consultant.

Theme music by Dave Mullen Jnr 

Connect with Timberplay:
Instagram
LinkedIn 

Find out more: Timberplay 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:02

I would table it that if you need a fence in a play area, especially on some of our urban developments, you've potentially failed it at the design stage.

SPEAKER_00 0:12

If there's someone that you need to pay attention to, it's Scott Chalmers. He talks about embedding play from the very first moment of the work that Urban and Civic do. I really hope you enjoy this episode. So, Scott, welcome to Play Attention. Today we have got Scott Chalmers. He is the head of green infrastructure at Urban and Civic, and Urban and Civic are a UK's leading master developer. They produce large-scale residential strategic sites and work on those to provide communities. So, Scott, welcome.

SPEAKER_02 0:50

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 0:50

Thank you very much. Well, would you like to tell people a little bit about the work that you do? What your job entails?

SPEAKER_02 0:56

So, Head of Green Infrastructure entails for urban and civic is setting the strategy for how we're going to bring forward our green infrastructure, how we're going to integrate our landscape seamlessly into the developments that we build. So I will work on what that strategy looks like. I will bring together the different stakeholders, different design teams, and together collaboratively, we will design our spaces and bring that forward into construction and onward into stewardship. So it's very much closing up the circle of what green infrastructure and landscape should be on developments and beyond, really.

SPEAKER_00 1:38

Okay, amazing. And so this podcast is play attention. So clearly, I'm gonna ask you the question straight off the bat where does play fit into all of that process?

SPEAKER_02 1:51

Play for us as urban and civic, and certainly for myself, is fundamental to the delivery of new places. And it's central, it's embedded in the designs that we deliver. So we like to think that play activates a place. Without it, I wouldn't say it can be soulless, but when we're bringing forward developments, these are homes, these are communities, this is where people are going to live, grow, play. Um, and as such, play is is central to all of that. So it's very much at the forefront of our designs and taken forward naturally, then uh woven into the very fabric of developments for us.

SPEAKER_00 2:36

And that's not an entirely typical um placemaking strategy. I I feel from my experience of working with a number of different developments or even just walking through space, there are definitely a lot of places where you feel like maybe culturally play sat differently, so it's not designed into space because where I live it's very Victorian, children would have been out playing anyway. There's often lots of green pockets of park around because that was kind of provided as a kind of workers' uh support network, but the children would just be out playing. We're in a very culturally different environment now where children are accessing play often with an adult, typically with an adult. And so those spaces they're they're really important to be thought about now. We can no longer just accept that it's a part of life, it has to be provided for, and in that way you've you've created a real clear vision to add it into the strategy and base it from the beginning. How do you enable those spaces to be welcoming to the adults that are taking those children along as well as the as well as the children? Is there a particular way that you approach that?

SPEAKER_02 3:51

We try to look at it holistically. What is the function of a play space? And from the start, we try to look at it as it's not a space, it's the whole development. It's very much part of the journey of life on an urban and civic development. So we try to you know solve solve the challenges that lay in front of us of what makes a place feel like home, what makes you feel connected to it, and as such, the integration of nature into the space so that you know adults want to be out there with children and they want to stay, they want to dwell, they don't want to rush home. It doesn't want to be a chore or a labour for uh a grandparent, a brother, sister, mother, father to take a young child out, and as such, try to make sure that all of our spaces have something for everybody, they are accessible, but accessible has so many different meanings.

SPEAKER_00 4:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:56

And it's very key to us that they're desirable, you want to be there. And if we can design with accessibility in mind, we'll we'll naturally create these spaces that people want to be in, they want to dwell in. And for us, you can build a community a around them. So it is community focused, it's community-led. We're not just trying to target, uh, shall we say, tick box exercising of it needs to serve this fact function and that function alone. Um, we're very much thinking diversely about how we want to bring forward these areas.

SPEAKER_00 5:29

And I think it really is very clear that this is having an impact. So you talk about it not being a space. So it's not like you've got a plan and you've gone, houses go here, trees go here, roads go here, play goes here. You're thinking about how people behave across the whole of the development sites that you're working on. Because you're working on quite, I mean, big, big, big infrastructure projects, aren't you?

SPEAKER_02 5:57

Yeah, we are we're very blessed. I'd I'd like to say it makes it a little bit easier for us, but there's always a challenge there. And you you could be naive. Um, when we're dealing on sites of scale, a thousand acres, five thousand dwellings, um, on a 70-30 split between green and kind of um developer land, you know, there's a plan behind me that you see little circles dotted on. Yeah. And it can be very easy just to drop an area in because within a plan and permission, you have to provide X amount of playable space, formal open space provision, laps, leaps, leeps, as such. So you can at the strategy stage can get boxed into defining here's your 400 square meter area, here's your 800, here's your thousand. We see it very much as an open canvas of embed and play, you know, throughout the development. It's a key opportunity to get people outside and experiencing uh nature as a family, as a unit on their own. And you know, we try to remove those lines, not just at the paper stage, but at actual development, construction stage. You know, we don't believe in fencing, we believe in landform, uh soft boundary treatment. So whilst you may define the space for planning purposes, it it's it doesn't end there. You you know, you don't actually walk through an urban civic play area through a gate and go, here I am, I'm here, this is where I'm allowed to play. When we have acres of green space surrounding these areas, uh the play space needs to bleed into the surrounding landscape so that it it doesn't feel like a defined area when you're living it. And we need to s set that at the strategy point, really.

SPEAKER_00 7:42

Yeah, it's so interesting because what you're talking there is almost like uh when you talk about soft boundaries, it's it's they're very different to barriers, isn't it? And um I think when I was coming into the kind of world of play space design or play environment design or those kind of designated areas, there was a whole conversation about fencing because it was around the time that the Play England Design for Play document was written, and there was a lot of talk about fencing, and I know some people have quite an emotional response to feeling like fencing is needed, but I've also seen some beautiful examples where there are boundaries, but it's to topographical or it's planting, and it creates a very, very different atmosphere functionally, it operates in the same way, but you're talking about that being a really key part of that um of that element of flow and and and letting people bleed into the landscape. So yeah, that's a really beautiful thing.

SPEAKER_02 8:41

Yeah, I think we I would table it that if you need a fence in a play area, especially on some of our urban developments, there is a bit more kind of available space. You've you've potentially failed at the design stage because how have you got so far along? We you know, we're designing our areas for five, six, seven, eight years. But if you have to put a fence in, what's happening around that area that is making the fence in the key requirement? Are we starting with putting a fence around somewhere? So if we get to that element, you know, we've we've already lost. That's the way we'd see it. If we are then restricted to having to put a fence in, why? Commercially, fencing can take up 30% of your play budget. It's it's it's crazy. It's just lost value, gone straight away. It makes sense to design without it, not to save money, but to ensure that you're adding not just play value, but nature value, you know, place, sense, well-being, all those things that can be provided uh through using landscape form and planting for defensible boundaries and for fun as well. You know, it can all be part of it.

SPEAKER_00 9:53

Yeah. I think it must be quite uh both yeah, it's both an opportunity having a complete blank canvas, but also it's a big challenge. Yeah. So you've talked about fencing, you've talked about those spatial elements. Um when you when you were first talking about the work that you do, you talked about collaborative design, you talked about the stakeholders and those design teams and bringing them together. And I know that consultation can play a huge part in in the development of spaces, but there's lots of different kinds of uh approaches to consultation, and there's aspects where some people feel it's tokenistic, but then there's other elements where it's it's complete kind of co-creation. Where does the involvement of those stakeholders, who are those stakeholders, and where does the involvement sit within the development of your your residential areas, your communities?

SPEAKER_02 10:49

So we are blessed with having multiple sites and active delivery. And as such, we have a wealth of you know background stakeholders um, you know, working with us on on a uh across our portfolio now on a new development that is yet to have a community, is yet to have a school. The the baseline stakeholder are the local authority, the play officers as such, you know, our network of delivery enables us to tap into schools on other developments that we've brought forward, other communities that we've created and grown, and start working together and drawing that information centrally and disseminating it across our portfolio to say, well, actually, we know that in this area, this is the equipment and the play value that the people are looking for, the residents are looking for. And as such, we are tapping into residents, schools, local authority. We then go into uh the likes of the play designers because they have a wealth of experience and knowledge. They've been doing this much longer than we have, they're the experts in it. So even just consulting our play designers on what's working for them, what have they seen manufacturing-wise as well. And of course, Field and Trusts and other kind of play England, all the kind of ready of information that is there and available, we are almost vacuuming in every every source of information avail uh that's you know out in the market to us and rationalizing that into um almost play design briefs and strategies to bring that forward. Now it's an ever-changing landscape. And the way that play was designed and brought forward many years ago, and even in some elements still being brought forward now, is a little bit out of check with what we like to do. So we have to consider, we have to consider that. But it's it's it's without collaboration, there's no point in a developer designing a play space because we think it's right uh and it's good for us and it might look pretty. Our you know, our kind of key performance indicator is a play area used every day, every week, every weekend? Is it used in the evening, in the morning? Is it something that's bringing the community together? Because whilst it might look pretty on a front cover of drawing, or it might appease a tick box kind of register, yeah. Are there people there laughing? Is there multi-generational use of an area? Yep. And through consultation, through that do those different demographics, that is how we're able to pull together, you know, a balanced, diverse play space.

SPEAKER_00 13:24

I know somebody who lives in Corby and I know that they have driven to Prayers Park to play there because in that area for them it absolutely fundamentally is uh is a play space that they feel really, really gives them what they want and they like being there, and they were doing that before some of the houses were even built. So, you know, that connection where your existing community is becoming part of the of the community that's being built around it. So I know that there are successes. However, my question is in the 15 years that Urban and Civic has been taking this approach and really valuing play, you know, presumably there are things where there are lessons learnt as well, things where you're adapting, you know, play is all about resilience to failure. You know, are there things along the way that have have changed about the approach or that you've learned through through delivering play?

SPEAKER_02 14:20

Yeah, uh we we don't always get it right, but our intentions always is always good as always well. Uh and again, a lot of our developments have 10 areas of play, 12 areas of play with multiple different facets of what that play looks like. We have learned along the lines of we should deliver even earlier than we have done in the past. So almost our play areas get forward a little bit, a little bit quicker because when we think of soft boundaries, planting's fantastic. But if you've got you know 500 home development already operational and you try to put a hedge row and some planting around to act as the delineated boundary, everybody runs through it because it's not established, it's not got away yet. Um, our approach to surfacing has, you know, it it's it's been sort of enhanced and developed as we've gone through the journey of we've sampled so many different products uh over the years of what works best for us. And we then have to battle with our residents who you know, fundamentally we've built these places for, and sometimes they're that good that people do travel in.

SPEAKER_00 15:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:25

And we've almost created a destination play space which can cause some upset for residents. We have parking issues because everyone wants to drive and parking is our play space. Now we want to make sure that there is a connected network for sustainable travel, active travel on our developments. So we are forever looking at the spatial layout and the equipment that we put forward so that we are trying to, you know, continue to learn, continue to provide what is a positive uh amenity for not just our residents, but you know, the wider contingent uh of people. We'll continue to learn, we'll continue to diversify our offering, but I don't think we'll ever get away from the fact that we care about delivering good play space.

SPEAKER_00 16:11

Very much so. There is a tension between a residential local provision being seen as a destination provision, but that's because you're doing it with this value and strategy behind it. Actually, what it should do is get other people noticing and saying, actually, that's really successful. Why don't we deliver better? But you're not just doing this out of the good of your heart. There is a there is a commercial impact.

SPEAKER_02 16:36

Yep, I mean fundamentally we are a commercial entity. We're not here to build play areas, we're here to build places and we could go around it in a way where we build all the houses and then with what any money is left at the end, we bring the play space forward.

SPEAKER_03 16:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:51

But the the the business ethos is to bring forward amenity spaces earlier because they are inherently linked to higher appreciative values. They are sales pieces fundamentally, and they can be. And from a development point of view, if you re realise and recognise the value that play, good open space, very high quality uh amenities, you should see an upturn in house sales. You know, we see an upturn in uh the uptake in in residential uh dwellings. That all has a knock-on effect on commercial value because the more houses we sell, naturally the higher value of land, and again it becomes a circular economy. We don't just do it purely for a value for a commercial value because we believe it's the right thing to do, but ultimately as a business that is here to make money, it it helps the fact that we believe it is the right thing to do, and it does add real economic value into it. We there was some studies done, I think it was 2019 to 2021, where a few of our developments, top ten most desirable developments, the house builders on our developments were scoring in the top ten on these, certainly a Halton, which is a fantastic uh development that has brilliant uh diverse landscape offering with some special play areas. They were seeing people want to live there. It's a draw, it becomes a desirable place to be. So house builders can recognise that value because if the amenities are already there, there's value. People want to come here and live here over another development somewhere else. Now, we'd like every development to provide that quality because we're not about being the leader in these things purely because we want to be the best. We want to bring the standard up for everybody. Yeah, because everyone deserves good quality and it should be accessible for all. And our message back is there is value in doing it. So why don't we all do it rather than looking at it from a commercial point of it costs money to install these things, it costs money to look after them, let's do them cheap, let's bring them at the end because that we've made our money and we can you know decide how much of that money we want to spend against allocating. We we firmly believe bring it forward early, the people will come, the people build the community, they they make these developments what they are, and we recognize the commercial value in that, and we and and ultimately that's why we're still doing what we're doing.

SPEAKER_00 19:16

So that would be your like because I was thinking, I wonder if how you would describe that or ask that of a of a of somebody who is making the argument that, you know, well, it costs more money, it takes a different approach, it's longer to plan, or you know, you're basically embed it, embed it into the very ethos of what your space is trying to provide.

SPEAKER_02 19:38

What are the house sales like? And it's it's testing. Uh you know, during COVID, during lockdown, people realizing we want back gardens, we want open space. You know, house sales, house values flew up. You know, we have people then wanting to move to our developments because there's good accessible immunity space. We we care about it. It's and it's not just short term, it is long term. It takes us 20 years to build these developments, maybe longer. So when we're planning these spaces, it's not just three, four hundred houses and and and we move on and you know, they get moved into the local authority, and that's that. You know, these very much form part of a way of life for us as a business and for the people that live here. There is commercial value to doing it. It doesn't have to be expensive because you're doing it early. You have to have a good strategy, a good plan for how you're going to bring them forward. And our teams are fantastic at balancing the books to make it all work because ultimately you are cash flowing early. But once you start realizing the sales, we start getting those occupation numbers up, it it all becomes circular with it. And for us, the message is it doesn't have to be expenses, it doesn't have to be something that's thought of as an afterthought. You can embed it at the start, recognize commercial value, recognize social health, well-being value as well, which are really critical in a challenging market right now. People are really selective of where they want to live. They have to spend a lot of money to live where they're going to live. And people want to bring families up and they want to retire. Yeah. These spaces are what are going to draw people in and hold people over time. And what connects everything though for us is the green space. You are not put in a corner, you're not hidden away. Everybody has that access to green space. And the studies have shown the closer you are to green space, good, valuable green space of size, there is a direct link to the value of that property.

SPEAKER_00 21:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:40

So spatially plan your space so that everybody has access to green space. And we have an internal metric for 25% biodiversity and net gain. We're scoring above that. It's not a mandatory requirement, but it's an internal one. And we also have metrics on uh distance to I think it's a hectare of open space. You know, we have to be scoring within uh 200 metres, each house needs to be within 200 metres of usable and accessible green space, good quality. So it's very much ingrained in what we do, and it does circle back to that point that there is value in doing it. So why not? Why not make that choice?

SPEAKER_00 22:14

Yeah, why not why not make that choice? I really um I want to ask a question now, which is I suppose a little bit presumptuous, so you can you're very welcome to not answer it. But I was looking at your LinkedIn, I was looking at some of the the journey that you've had as a in within your career, and it feels like there is an aspect of you having been more on the delivery end. Uh you you sit very strategically now, but you've you've been very much on the delivery end, and as you refer to those kind of circles on the plan that's behind you, and you know, people looking at it, it feels like you have an understanding of space that is different to somebody who's only ever looked at it on a 2D plan or uh, you know, from above. It feels like do you feel like having that connectivity, both in terms of having worked the ground and worked the land, and been a bit more in contact with that feedback loop of people using the space? Do you feel that that has had a uh an impact on the way that you approach it rather than just somebody who's sat detached looking at the plans from a from a kind of you know, from a screen?

SPEAKER_02 23:25

Yeah, certainly. I think I'm I think I'm quite fortunate to have, you know, sat on both sides of the table. And I'm very fortunate that Urban and Civic have gave me the opportunity to use my skills, my knowledge, my experience to almost act as the glue between a contractor delivering and the designer designing and and everything that goes on in between that. So, you know, I've built play spaces, I've built landscapes, I've planted the plants, I'm a horticulturist by by trade, by background, that's my qualification. Amazing. Um so I've watched these spaces be put in by myself. And you know, 12 years ago when I kind of joined the first development before Abid and Civic acquired it, we were bringing forward these spaces, and you know, you're scratching your head saying, I'm not really sure that that's working. Why are we doing it like that? Maybe we should do it this way. And I've kind of just grown through this business with being able to, you know, influence the decision making into the point now where I'm actually setting the strategy and and leading the w the way for bringing forward these areas. But it very much does go back to I've experienced both sides, I've watched what's gone wrong, I've seen what's been done right, and then I've been able to have really good relationships with suppliers, manufacturers, delivery designers, and and you know, start bringing everyone together because ultimately no one person holds all that information. Yeah, and I'm not naive enough to kind of believe that I know it all, but I have a very good team of people within urban and civic that help, and outside of urban and civic that help. But um certainly the years of being outside in the wet, miserable rain, cold, mud, and in the sunshine of have have played a key part in understanding uh how these areas can work and why it matters so much to design them right at the first time because I'm sure there are plenty of people out there that have delivered these areas, stand there holding a plan saying this doesn't work.

SPEAKER_00 25:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:27

While they're while they're standing in the field about to install something.

SPEAKER_00 25:30

So it's really interesting because I I mean there's certain knowledge that you don't get unless you've done. And I think that's the thing with play. It's so experiential that actually enabling the next generation and the generations after to be connected to landscape uh risk, challenge, moving things around, adaptation, problem solving. This is what enables people to develop to the point where they're then in your position being able to make strategic decisions that actually are really grounded in space.

SPEAKER_02 26:03

Yeah, I think my I was asked this question about how do we get developers thinking differently to green infrastructure and play. And my answer was you we we need to employ more people that have done it in the development world.

SPEAKER_00 26:18

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 26:19

We don't always need to line a consultant pool because you need somebody within your own organization that has lived and understood what this means. You know, your key ally within there. So it it's unrivaled, really. If if you've done it, you as you say, you've you you know, you'll you'll know what can work and you certainly know what doesn't work because you've probably done things wrong over time. That's how we all learn here, and that's fundamentally what play actually is. It's just when we think back to it from the young ages of exploring and you know, risk, taking those challenges, falling over, getting back up. This is very much what we take forward into our later lives in our business lives where we've we're we're risk takers because we've learnt risk at an early age. Um I'd be lying if I said every play area that I go to the Urban and Civic um is delivered, or even outside of what we deliver. I'll go along it. I'm a little bit bigger now, a little less mobile, but I still want to go in there because we're all big kids at heart. And we don't need to shy away from that. I think um, you know, a play champion or an open space champion in in in organizations, it that should be a key part of business as usual because it is a change in landscape. We are thinking about open space differently now. We need the champions, we need the we need the skill, the knowledge, the experience to be able to bring designs to life and ensure that they are there because we can be very good at bringing something forward for two years, five years, but in 15 years, is it is it still there? Is it still working, or have we been a little bit short or short-sighted in our delivery um mindset?

SPEAKER_00 28:07

So have there been occasions when you've really had to compromise? And what is it that's that's brought that compromise about in those spaces?

SPEAKER_02 28:17

No good design is probably not actually realised without compromise. I'm certainly a creative thinker, a dreamer, maybe. And I certainly at the very outset of our play strategy, because we'll do a play strategy for every development. At the early stages, we're starting to think about where the play is going to go, what the heritage of the site is, what how how what are these spaces going to be, you know, what what's going to be the key character? So I would certainly be guilty of at the start scribbling down ideas of I want these fantastic areas. No, I want every play area to be an award-winning play area, not because we want the recognition, but because we want the value, we want that play value to be realized. And, you know, we have budget constraints. It's not an open checkbook. You have to work within budget constraints. So, you know, as such, we have created budgets for all of our play spaces because it's part of a viability assessment. You need to make sure that this in the end is going to make money. Their compromises on budget, on what we're going to bring forward. That's more internal constraints. External constraints are local authorities and their approach to risk, their approach to commercial exposure. And we have sites predominantly our sites are service charge recoverable, which is not everybody loves that idea. The residents pay a service charge to maintain the development. But what that gives us, from our perspective, is the ability to be more creative in our in our public open space, in our public realm.

SPEAKER_03 29:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:54

We have a couple of sites that are handed over to the local authority, we will pay a commuted sum. And as such, you have to take on board exactly what the local authority want to deliver as part of their standard strategic approach to play. And there are compromises then that are in. And I'm if there are any uh local authority listeners, then I apologise, but we have a complete different approach to play. And I've sat in a room with play officers where they are adamant that steel is the only, you know, it's nothing that catches fire. There are times where we have to seed on certain things.

SPEAKER_00 30:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:36

But I would almost challenge anyone to visit an urban and civic development and even if it's going over to local authority, not see something that would say, okay, I get that. That that's there's there's just an element. But we certainly at times have to manage expectations, our own expectations, and compromise on what we would really like to deliver. Because if we can't get it adopted, then our our hands are tied. Yeah. And um, you know, the people in my team probably see my frustration when we've got a great strategy and thought process, and we put it in, and the first comments come back saying, Well, we need a fence and it needs to be wet poor, and it needs to be uh, you know, it needs to have these four pieces of equipment because in 10 years' time or 15 years' time when it needs replacing, we need to have the money to be able to do that. And I understand that, and it is a shame because there should be more money within the you know the public purse to not restrict these areas, but they're dealing with their budgets and it's tough, and uh the compromise comes certainly in in the value of these areas when there's outside control.

SPEAKER_00 31:45

Well, I'm hoping that the way that you approach this does actually create these precedent spaces because then it's actually showing people that it can be done in that way, and I think yeah, I think I mean that is such a massive part of this conversation. That's entirely where my journey into play started when there was a national play strategy, when there was 263 million for the development of new playgrounds through the play builder pathfinder uh program, and I worked within a local authority designing and well delivering, not designing, but delivering play areas, and it was really interesting to know that when I went in as my first kind of proper, proper post-degree job, um, I got loads done because I didn't know what the questions were I was supposed to ask. But as soon as I started asking them, everything slowed down quite a lot. And I found I thought it was really wise of them to kind of employ a very naive person who just got got it done. And then as soon as you people were frightened to make that decision of yes, but I think what you're providing them with is an example of how yes can look. Just in terms of that approach to risk, I just want to ask you a little bit of a question about how you manage um that kind of balance between your dreamer, your dreamer, you know, uh it it comes across that you are a fun, playful person who was actually quite willing to take risks. Where do the standards help you? Where do they support you? And where do they hold innovation and that and that dream back in terms of delivering?

SPEAKER_02 33:17

I think it's well, I mean, we obviously have to get these um approved. We have to have them signed off. Uh the post-installation inspection, but we also do a design risk assessment. Now, some of our play areas, um, every year the play inspector goes out and says, Well, that's a a rock stack, and if you fall, you'll die.

unknown 33:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:37

It's a big risk.

SPEAKER_03 33:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:39

The likelihood of falling is minimal, and the play value that that offers outweighs the risk. If not, we're gonna have sterile play areas, right? They're going to be these you've got a swing and you've got a slide, and that's about it. There's no challenge, there's no fun there. We work with the stakeholders, we we take it on board, and we we do put a lot of kind of the emphasis back onto our play designers ultimately to provide us with confidence of is this certified? It needs to go through, it needs to pass. So, you know, where where does the boundary lie? And we've always pushed it because we believe that it can be done, it can be achieved. And Prize Hall Park is featured as a case study in the latest update of the Field and Trust Guidance. But two of our other developments, uh, I think it was Alcambre and Water Beach, uh, were also in there as as again exemplars for how this can be brought forward. Risk is tough. We have an internal uh health and safety team that that help review. We go through all the rigor when we're designing over design risk assessments and ROSPA-approved um certification. We just try and look at it as where does the value lie? Let's start there. You know, we want this to be enjoyable, we want this to be fun. And if we don't have risk takers now, we won't have risk takers of the future. These children are not going to learn how to take risks as they grow up. But ultimately, as well, there is risk for older generations because risk is challenge, that's all it is. It's what brings us that bit of adrenaline, is what brings us that bit of enjoyment because I'm scared of that. Um, we run every year, we across multiple of our sites, I think it's every one of our sites, we run um work experience sessions for local students, and they come and learn to be a master developer for a week. What does that what does that entail? And I do a session uh one of my colleagues, and we always do let's design a play area. It's good for us, a bit of free labor, don't tell anyone. Um but what we do is we get that little bit of collaborative consultation because we bring in these group of 15-year-olds, mixed of boys and girls, great because we need more girls' influence and spaces. We need we need the we need these. And I take them around a play area. The first thing I do is I'll take them through a design brief. I'll take them through some standards. It's really everyone's bored at that point. That says a lot about it, why they're bored. Um, and then we go out and we play. And a lot of them will go to certain bits and they say, Well, you know, we've got this climbing frame. What do you think? Like, oh, it'd be much easier if that first step was lower. So the first step's intentionally not lower because you're 15, 14, or you're at a point where you are um developed enough in your mind to assess that risk.

SPEAKER_03 36:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:32

Uh so you're comfortable, right? Well, that's every every detail is thought out in a play area. And that's from our point, it's it's trusting the process that risk can be controlled, risk can be managed, and there's a reason behind it all. And if you're if you embed that in there, the the risk can the risk can be controlled. How many, how many deaths are there? How many serious injuries there are? A scratch of a knee for me is a bit of a trophy of of exploration, right? We didn't get anywhere by going the easy route. And fundamentally, if we design with risk first, what we're going to get is a sterile environment, a sterile landscape, and as such, sterile human beings as we we grow older, there will be no creativity. So our our kind of real thought processes, risk is fundamental. We cannot create dangerous spaces. That is not what we want to do. Everything needs to be safe, but it has to be fun.

SPEAKER_00 37:29

Scott, it's been an absolute, it's been a really fascinating conversation. It's been an absolute pleasure to talk to you today. Um typically what we do when we have our guests on at the podcast, we leave them with a final question. Uh, and that final question I'm gonna put to you now, which is if there was one thing you could do in any field to uh progress play more fully, you've talked about all of its values and all of its all of its power. But um if there was one thing that you could do, what would that be? One thing I know it's a big question, isn't it? Nobody ever seeks to one.

SPEAKER_02 38:14

I know if there's one thing I could do, I would lift play higher in the hierarchy of uh planning. It should be a key component. I would I would have it at parliamentary level, secured, safeguarded, more than a minimum standard would would be my view. I would elevate what that standard is. And I just build more play areas that are not demarcated by size. I would have play along the way, I'd have doorstep play, and I would have play as an adventure part of the journey of everything that we do externally, rather than defining it by size equipment as such, because we are shackling um our creativity in that. So hopefully that answered it.

SPEAKER_00 38:59

No, I think it's uh I think it's a fantastic answer. And Scott, I want to thank you for today, but also thank you for the work that you do.

SPEAKER_01 39:07

No, thank you very much for having me. Um, you know, onward, as we say. Onward and upwards. Yes.