What Does "Enough Play" Really Mean?

What does it actually mean for children to have enough opportunities to play?

In this episode, Beth Cooper is joined by Mike Barclay and Ben Tawil from Ludicology to explore the idea of play sufficiency - a principle that is quietly reshaping how councils, planners, schools and communities think about children's everyday lives.

Rather than seeing play as something that happens only in playgrounds, Mike and Ben explain why play depends on three essential ingredients: time, space and permission. Together they discuss how listening to children has transformed their understanding of what makes places truly playable and why creating great play opportunities is about everyone-from planners and landscape architects to transport teams, schools and local authorities-playing a role.

The conversation also explores real-world examples from Wales and across England, including Leeds' pioneering work on play sufficiency, and asks what it would take to create neighbourhoods where children can once again play as part of everyday life.

 Whether you're involved in placemaking, education, public policy, or care about creating better places for children, this episode offers a fresh perspective on what thriving communities really look like. 

What else you'll hear:

• Why play sufficiency is about much more than playgrounds.
• The three conditions every child needs: time, space and permission.
• How children's perspectives challenge adult assumptions about play.
• Why play is everyone's responsibility – from planners to public health.
• The story behind Leeds' pioneering work on play sufficiency.
• Why playable neighbourhoods matter more than destination playgrounds.
• How simple policy changes could transform children's everyday lives.

Find out more:

Ludicology

Child Friendly Leeds

Tim Gill - Rethinking Childhood

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 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

It's amazing that we got the opportunity to do research with children about their opportunities for play and then spent about a week shutting a room together trying to figure out what on earth it all meant.

SPEAKER_00 0:10

We hold a bit to provide the line of inquiry that leads them to the answer, and most people do. And and most people then go, oh my god, I can't believe I'm doing that.

SPEAKER_02 0:18

In its most simple form, place efficiency is about making sure that children have enough time-space permission to play. It's that simple.

SPEAKER_01 0:27

This episode focuses on place efficiency. We talked to Mike Barclay and Ben Towell from Lead Ecology, who for the last 12 years have spent their time bringing people into the conversation about how important play is and how people can, in practice and in principle, embed play at the heart of whatever sector work they do, whether that's transport planners, landscape architects, base developers, parents, teachers. They really explain what play sufficiency is. I came away with a much deeper understanding, and I hope you find it really useful too.

SPEAKER_00 1:12

So Ludicology means the study of play, playfulness. Twelve years ago now, I think, Mike, roughly. 11, 12 years ago. We did our first play sufficiency assessment with Mike as the lead play officer for Wrexham and me as an academic in Wrexham University. And we really, really enjoyed the work, and it was incredibly revealing during that first study. But that also came at a time when things were really tightening up in terms of what both academics were able to do in the wider field of interest and field of beneficence, if you like, getting outside of the classroom and doing stuff that contributed to the well-being of society, I suppose. And in local authorities, purse strings were tightening, that meant that local authority officers were much more tied to their desk, tied to their local authority, and tied to quite neat and constraining key performance indicators around delivery. And that play sufficiency assessment revealed to us that if playwork and play people were to have a role in really enabling children at a population level to better access their right to play and experience a sufficiency of play opportunities with all the benefits that that brings about, neither of us were going to be able to do much about that in our current positions. So we decided to set up a company and were part-time both on it for several years to try and get ourselves into a position where we can hopefully contribute to that mission of helping children be able to express and access and express their right to play at a population level.

SPEAKER_02 3:04

I think it's worth, you know, emphasising the context of our story is close and linked to what happened in Wales. You know, that's where we're both working. I mean, we're and we're still based in Wrexham today. Yeah. Um you know, whilst whilst the UK, you know, England had a had a you know its play strategy and big funding around 2008 and things like that, and and and then and that that stuff kind of disappeared with the change of government, Wales has really struck out on its own, really, when it comes to well, a lot of progressive policy, particularly, but in t particularly in terms of children's play. And it was actually, it was 2012 when the when the Welsh Place Efficiency Duty came in. And and that was the real kind of you know, we we'd been involved in supporting children's play kind of long before that in a variety of contexts. But that was like Ben says, that was the kind of warshed moment for us, because that was the point at which we were given the opportunity to do Wrexham's first place efficiency assessment, and that was uh an absolute game changer because somebody they actually gave us some money to do it. So I was working for Wrexham Council and was given that money and quickly went and found Ben, who was at Glindale University, now Wrexham University, and um and and we were tasked with like producing Wrexham's first place efficiency assessment, but that at the time it was very clear that there was no blueprint for how you did that, yeah. So we had to come up with a way of doing it, and and that's what that's what then led on to all of this work. I mean, we had it, you know, it was amazing, really. We got the opportunity to do research with children openly about their opportunities for play, and then spent about a week shutting a room together trying to figure out what on earth it all meant. And and really, and and everything has continued from there. I mean, that the stuff that we found out from that first assessment still rings true today, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_01 4:54

So when you talk about that, there's so many questions that I have about, you know, about those data sets, about how that happens, about the framework. But I would like to, if you don't mind, as to go back to real basic principles of you're talking about place efficiency. For you, it's a really clear, well, maybe it's not, maybe it's a very expansive and ever-changing scenario. But there are many people who will be listening to this who maybe don't even know what place efficiency is. So, can you take us back to absolute basics?

SPEAKER_02 5:28

Um, I'll just have a first stab at it because I think it's worth again saying what I think were, you know, a lot of what was happening before there was a play sufficiency duty in Wales was this idea that really, you know, when people talked about play, they were really using it as shorthand for a type of service. And kind of play was seen as, in terms of local authority, play was seen as the responsibility of a certain group of people. And it was about a lot of that work was about playgrounds and playwork projects and things like that. Yeah. All of which has real value. When the when the language of place efficiency came in, that was such a change because I think it, you know, uh uh in its most simple form, place efficiency is about making sure that children have enough time, space, permission to play as an essential part of their everyday lives. Yeah. It's that simple. But it of course raises the questions of well, well, do they? Do children have enough time, space, and permission to play? And how would we find out if they're getting enough? Okay. And what do we do then in response? If they are, how do we make sure they continue to get that? And if they aren't, what do we do about it? And so I think w whilst it's a simple principle, and we talk about this idea it can be an it's an organizing principle, you know, if we said in most of our decision making as adults that we we held true to this principle that children should have sufficient opportunities for play, then we would probably think about play a lot more in all of the kind of work that adults do with and on behalf of children. So I think everybody can think about the principle of play sufficiency. But but it but I think its real power is in the idea that it that it makes us ask questions about what is enough. And and and through doing that, we start to look at, well, when we speak to children about their lived experiences, they talk very differently about play to the way that adults have kind of constructed play in the past. So if you speak to children about play and ask them about whether they're getting enough opportunity, they'll tell you about moments of playing that happen throughout all aspects of their lives. They talk about playing at home and what time and space they've got there and what permission they've got. They talk about whether they can play just outside their houses, they talk about playing in the garden, they talk about playing on the way to school, they talk about playing at school and after school and in clubs and out of clubs and and in town and out of town and everywhere because children are always trying to play, you know, in at the back of the bus on the way to school and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_00 8:11

In Primarch.

SPEAKER_02 8:12

In Pripes. Yeah. They tell you about all of these things that make up a sufficiency or insufficiency of opportunity for play.

SPEAKER_01 8:22

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 8:23

And it moves that moves it away from us just thinking about designated playgrounds or play projects to looking at the entirety of children's lives and go, how you know, what are the conditions of their lives? How do those things work to either support or constrain children's ability to access time and space for play? And in doing that, it brings many more people into the conversation. And I think one of the real strengths of place efficiency as an organizing principle is the idea that lots of people can contribute to that. The people who designed design that you know homes can contribute to it. The people who are in children's homes can contribute to it, the people who design transport systems and spatial arrangements, the people who design, manage and facilitate schools, playworkers, youth workers, shopkeepers, post people, loads of people can contribute something to this kind of umbrella idea of children having sufficient opportunities for play. And therefore, it isn't just about some service or some team. There's a collective responsibility.

SPEAKER_00 9:34

I also think in all of that stuff that Mike's just said, it stops people thinking of it as being something that's simple. Yes. It opens it up to going, oh, this isn't just a simple this isn't just more parks. This isn't just more playworkers, this is a complex interrelated issue, and we should deal it deal with it in a principled way, like we deal with loads of other complex interrelated issues. Um things like you know, so so the so play sufficiency might be a bit of an ambiguous word, but that that's often the way that we deal with other complex things. So, like the core principle behind health and safety legislation are the two pillars of reasonableness and practicability. That's all you get there. You don't get you're allowed to have these kinds of accidents, you're allowed to have so many of accidents, you're not allowed to do these things, you are allowed to do those things. You get asked to show how you have reasonably and practicably dealt with the degree of risk that users are exposed to, whether that be in occupational or play leisure and recreational circumstances. Something like the sorry Beth, I know you want to say that. No, no, no, but it's something like some, you know, the difference between minimum wage and living wage. Well, you everyone can ask what living, what does that mean? But we all kind of know a living wage is the kind of wage where you could afford to get a mortgage on a house, go on a holiday. It's a different thing than minimum. And I think when we when we when we ask this question to delegates, participation, participants in a place efficiency um training course or something like that, you know, what what would be a minimum requirement for holidays per year? What would be an excessive amount of holidays per year? Um and what is a sufficient amount of holidays per year, and then think about the numbers they've given. They kind of go, all right, so sufficient maybe, or what would be a sufficiency of food versus a minimum quota of food? And it's maybe that bit where you kind of go, no, I'm all right, thank you. I don't need another apple, or I've left a bit on my plate. Um, and and and in and importantly for children in that first assessment, because we had no bloody idea, excuse my language, what sufficiency was either. But what it was really, really clear when you talk to children what sufficiency is. It seems to be the point at which they stop talking about really substantive issues that are barriers or deficits in opportunities for play and start talking about really nuanced, often qualitative additions or or adaptations you could make that might just improve their play a bit.

SPEAKER_01 12:17

That description, the work that you've done, that makes it so much clearer to me. And I think what you were just saying there, Ben, was about the kind of reductionism, you know. So I think what you were saying, Mike, about those three those three key points of time, space, and permission, as you're speaking, it kind of stretches it out and it puts these posts there, and it's like you can't you can't redact it just to um space. And I think often because because obviously we're very familiar with working with space, the people we're work talking to, putting it in that framework of time, space, permission really holds it in that full picture, and and yeah, that clarity about it's not about surviving, it's about th thriving, you know, like what's the bare minimum, and then what is excessive, and then this idea of sufficiency. So I I want to ask you in terms of those principles, how does that work in practice? So you told us about the first project that you were commissioned to do, and then out of that, Ludicology as an organization was born. How does it work in practice?

SPEAKER_02 13:32

We work with place efficiency at multiple different scales, you know. And and what we've been trying to do is develop ways of doing place efficiency, because I think you're absolutely right, as well as it being a kind of organizing principle and a and a very valuable concept for thinking about how we create good spaces for children and other people, there are also really kind of tried and tested ways of doing place efficiency. Um, and really we've been over the last decade working to explore how do you do place efficiency at various different scales. So nationally, for example, in Wales, what does the Welsh government need to have in place to enable place efficiency to happen on the ground, as it were? You know, so recently they had a ministerial review and they've made recommendations about how they're going to improve the kind of support for the place efficiency duty, what they can have in place to make it possible for local authorities to do this kind of work. Then at local authority level, we've been developing kind of um tried and tested processes for local authorities to produce place efficiency assessments. So that the first step in doing place efficiency is this idea of doing a comprehensive assessment to establish really like the current state of play across your region, you know, avoiding the assumptions and going, you know, where what are children telling us about the sufficiency of opportunities for play? Where it's good, because there are places where it's good, what's going on there? We need to know that stuff so we can protect it, but also learn from those places. So where are the places where children say, you know, they're routinely playing out? Because I think there is a problem that sometimes it's been claimed that all children have deprived of playing, and that's not true. There has been an erosion, certainly, in children's freedom to play in the public realm, and that has led to a shift in where children are playing. But there are places where it still happens very much in terms of children playing out on a routine basis, and we should find out where those are and what they're like. And we can also then identify those places where they're not so good and the reasons for it. And we've kind of developed a kind of very a structured process really for local authorities to work through in developing a really comprehensive place efficiency assessment that combines things like countywide surveys and using that to then find case study places to go and do much more qualitative work to explore what are the actual conditions that influence children's experiences and then fee, you know, sharing that with practitioners and working to develop it working together to develop kind of collaborative action plans. So you've got things working at that kind of scale. We've got the same kind of thing happening at a kind of neighborhood planning scale. So again, if we're gonna if when we're planning for play, we should be planning for play on a neighborhood level. It's not about individual spaces, it's about networks of spaces. And that when we're doing that, we should start by finding out from children what's actually going on in their community. Where do they use, where can they get to, that kind of thing. And then the other one I think to say would be that that that's why that that's what we also do in schools. So we also work on the Opal program, which is a you know outdoor play and learning program. Outdoor play and learning, it's a school improvement programme to improve play times. And the reason that we got involved in doing Opal is because Opal is really a very good example of doing play sufficiency in schools. It's like schools are a really important part of children's day, that they're there for a lot of time. They've structured children's lives outside of that time as well. How would we make the conditions as good as possible for playing in schools? Yeah. Well, the Opal programme gives schools a very kind of, again, tried and tested, structured process for that identifies all of the issues that influence conditions for play and enable schools to put things in place that really is pretty transforming transformational.

SPEAKER_01 17:33

You're talking about collating, collecting, examining this data set really from local authorities that's coming from children, from children's experiences. How how do you set about talking the children, getting their views, um, making sure that the responses they're giving you aren't uh to please you? I know that there's been research done where children will say, Oh yes, this is brilliant, because clearly you've spent a lot of money on it, but then they'll go and play somewhere completely different, or they might not tell you what they what they actually get up. How do you mitigate some of that and how do you go about getting those getting those views from children?

SPEAKER_00 18:15

I think you've got to step back a little a one step from that. And I think you've first got to think about, or maybe even two steps, you've got to think about first what do you are actually really, really trying to achieve from your piece of work. Okay. And I think often people don't actually do that. They just go, oh, we want to find out what children think. Let's write a questionnaire and you or let's write a thing, or let's go and talk to kids, and you just get an unquantifiable morass of stuff about children. So I think you've got to be really, really clear about what you're doing it and why you're doing it. Because if you're gonna go and talk to children, if you're gonna waste any, if you're gonna try, if you're gonna ask people to give their time, whether they are children's, professionals, any other adult, anyone, you should be really clear about only asking them things that are really valuable to the study you're doing. So having a real clear endpoint, and then thinking about what makes, and this is really key to that issue that you've brought up about trying to mitigate things like leading questions, internal bias, all of those sorts of things. Is what lines of inquiry should we pursue? Does it make sense to pursue? And those lines of inquiry should be based in evidence because we also have no right going about finding out stuff that we already know tons and tons about, you know what I mean? So so that's how kind of very often when we talk about time, space, and permission, we're talking really about what has come out of our findings, right? They are the things that are crucial in the play lives of children, parents, and other people involved, but actually the way the lines of inquiry go in are with time, space, and attitudes. We know that children's time, because of the evidence since the 80s, yeah, that children's time has been constrained and regulated. We know that the space has been constrained, diminished and is regulated. It makes sense to go and find out about those two things. And we know that attitudes that are are really a shorthand way of saying how are how are children constructed in the minds of the people that make policy, the people that then enact policy, and then those that are encultured by their experiences. So attitudes is a line of inquiry. How how are the people that so and also then doing that enables you not to just be going in with this big, huge question for children and going, tell us about your play. But if you go and say, tell us about the time you have for play, it helps them kind of have a bit of a kind of set of parameters, helps them, helps that it gives them parameters for their thinking, and they'll actually give you a much more expansive conversation about play because it's constrained in that line of inquiry. And we know that line of inquiry isn't leading because it's based in the evidence. And the same with then space, tell us about the tell us about the time you have for play in school, tell us about the time you have for play outside of school, tell us about the time you have for play in the summer holidays and then the holidays, those kinds of what about the weekend? We can learn a lot about children's play lives through that, and their and their conversations will be much more expanded because. question is a little bit more finite same with space and the same with attitudes now there's a really there's another Naomi Lott's got a really great framework out of that her star framework space time acceptance and rights we've not that's a really great conceptual model to fit things into to think about how we provide and work with systems that enable play but I'm yet to find anybody that doesn't accept that children should be able to play particularly parents and I'm yet to find kids that don't accept that they can that they can play or want to play. The issue that comes out is not that parents don't accept their children need play is that parents don't feel they can give the children permission to go and play out because there's too much traffic because there's too much danger because there's too much street crowd absolutely there is all of the traffic all of the way in which space space has been designed to favour the movement of workers and goods is is is a massive influence.

SPEAKER_02 23:12

But of course children are now also living with all of these kind of digital influences as well but I think we have to be careful there that as adults we don't presume all of that stuff to be bad. I think we can be as adults a bit guilty of kind of dismissing all of that stuff as though it's all bad. But you can also say there are children will tell you about some of the negative influences of things as well and how they feel about you know the the fear of things being shared on on social media and the like I think it's like Ben was saying before it's about the willingness to work with the complexity of the situation and and the ambiguity of it and it's and it's not all bad and it's not all good and we've actually got to And there's more than one answer. And there's more than one answer and and it's only when we it's a complex system. It's only when we are willing to engage in trying to understand the the complexity of that system that we can really see where we might intervene to make things better. And the last thing I that I would say is though certainly through our experience of schools is that it still absolutely rings true that if you create the conditions children are just as good at playing as they've ever been they just need enough time to do it.

SPEAKER_01 24:31

Well I can feel it I mean can I can just feel it in this conversation I mean you know coming from a playwork education standpoint and then working in spatial development for such a long time and then but constantly having that kind of playwork's mindset even I'm a bit guilty of that kind of really binary sort of black and white view of like well you know some of it's geographical over the Welsh border all this is happening and then you come into England and everyone's miserable. So yeah but actually having that conversation with just with you just now it creates a much more you see how how layered it is and how nuanced it all is and I think just in this I'm learning and I think um yeah just having those conversations I can see it really moving things forward.

SPEAKER_02 25:21

But yeah just to say absolutely we always say that actually the act of doing a place efficiency assessment is a development tool in itself. Yeah that's where change happens yeah when people get the chance to talk about this stuff.

SPEAKER_01 25:34

We reference the geographical border between Wales and England. I know that you've worked in Leeds and Leeds we we spoke to uh to Jen and we spoke to Emma about the Leeds play sufficiency uh process and they so in the in England we don't have a statutory requirement whereas in Wales it's a statutory requirement and I believe it's as well yeah so in England you can get away with not thinking about this but Leeds have gone well let's not do that let's actually tackle this and think about that and again that's because of passionate people and a framework that supports those conversations Leeds has been having those conversations for a while and they got to the point where Jen has taken on this role within the city council so they had this huge data set what was it like working in Leeds with the with them what was what was that process like can I can I just say just we we should just say very clearly and and Ben can start talking about Leeds but it is it is it most of our place efficiency work happens in England now.

SPEAKER_02 26:45

Oh really okay I will agree like Leeds yeah we should just give credit to Sandwell Council yeah Oxfordshire Council Manchester City Council they're all working on the same kind of stuff and I think there's other areas you know places like Sheffield moving towards doing it as well so yeah leads Leeds is a bit of a trailblazer but worth saying that I think there is a bit of a place efficiency.

SPEAKER_00 27:09

Thanks for that clarity well well well one I have to declare my unambiguous love for both Jen and and um and and Emma they were they are they were fantastic to work with and Karen should get a shout out and and Naomi other members that were really key to the process without whom it would not have been a success it is what we do is we we call it a knowledge transfer partnership we built the tools we built the package but it is a lot of a lot of legwork grunt work on behalf of anyone that commissions that package we hold we hold hands with those people that that the team that end up doing the work right the way through um but they embraced it wholeheartedly and and and just put the legwork in Emma was was visionary in kind I mean me and Emma had had talked over over a good few years beforehand and she was like I think they need I think what you've got to offer them might be the thing that could turn it round. Because I think Leeds I I mean I've got a long relationship with Leeds I did the playwork degree in Leeds I've I was going out with my ghetto blaster and lino to Leeds when I was like 12 breakdancing in the streets and stuff like that. You know what I mean I've been there a long time it's always been one of those cities that has fallen into that trap of seeing it as being one department's job and that department then works with the voluntary sector and everybody's trying to do it and everyone's playing with it and it's very difficult to develop a a really inclusive strategy and stuff like that. So it was a it was it was a real blessing to get the work and and I think they got one of their questions very early was what's it going to change what's it going to change what's it going to change and and and one of my reference points is I and I'm I might be incorrect on this it's like the the the first Kyoto summit where nobody agreed let's cool the world by 10% they agreed to do something about it. The first Kyoto agreement was to agree it was something that was important and everyone could just sign up to that. And and I said what will don't see this bit of work as the bit of work that will change things in everyone's community. See this bit of work that will enable a whole system shift that will make doing work in all of those communities more easy. And I think they just got that really early on and saw it as a as a kind of big policy instrument development um and and yeah they they just worked incredibly hard they followed the program I mean I think it was I think it was transformational in in the in the knowledge and understanding that um Karen who worked with works still works with active leads and partners closely with Jen and Jen into you know that it was just a joy you know having them come because what we say to them is like you know go go and do your face-to-face research you know halfway through the program and and come back and present to me the stuff you found and and and we'll make some comment on that and help you along with that about how you might then present it back to partners and in a in a sort of session and just just watching people's vocabulary knowledge base connecting the dots just just just incredible and and I think Leeds is in a I mean they they achieved essentially all party support apart from the one counsellor whose job it is to oppose things that the seat of power is proposing. Which is something that's just never happened. You know that's th 30 40 years Leeds have been had an approach to play that is different because of that piece of work that they did.

SPEAKER_02 30:57

Yeah and the fact they actually you know then you know that commitment to the principle of place efficiency at cabinet level is is an absolute game changer because that means that everybody else then in the council has the permission to contribute to that kind of work. Yeah you know there is a directive to do it. So you're no longer just asking favours of people and they're trying to fit it around you know it's a legitimate use of time and resource. I mean it you know all credit to Leeds for having been the f the first one to like really make that level of of commitment to place efficiency.

SPEAKER_01 31:36

Yeah and and also as you say let's let's also celebrate the Oxford show you say and Manchester and Sandwell did you say Sandwell yeah Sandwell have completed theirs we're working with Manchester and Oxford show at the moment. Brilliant excellent and uh yeah so on that just to really uh I suppose bring it quite directed I'm gonna put you know point the arrow at something that we really like to focus on. So a lot of uh the people that we work with a lot of the listeners are going to be working in space development. So we've talked about time space permission but just focusing on that idea of space that framework of we have an area where we know children will be whether that's as they leave their doorstep whether it's a shared space in urban realm or whether it's designated play area when you're talking to planners um developers when you're talking with landscape architects or if you don't get the opportunity to talk to them what is it that you would like to say to them?

SPEAKER_00 32:39

I'm gonna let Mike come in on this mostly because he's really good at this this stuff and uh uh talks well about it. Um I think there's a couple of things because you talked about planners and landscape development loads of initiative about spatial development is about new new spaces. And they're really key. But the vast majority of children live in old spaces so so when we're talking about design we've got to be talking about redesign we've got to be talking about how how are you going to address the spatial conditions in this place that already exists that was developed on an idea of freedom of move independent movement license acceptance permission yeah that was developed on on on that sort of stuff a hundred years ago 60 years ago 40 years ago so we've got to talk to those kind of redevelopers we've got to have a way of talking about space that works for them and then another factor that I think plays into that conversation and new ones is if Tim Gill's um analogy is correct that the majority of eight-year-olds play no further than the shadow outside of their own home then whatever spatial plan you develop needs to be taking account of how children actually live. So the idea about hoping to have a playground within a 10 minute walk of every child's house it's it's a nice idea and and and I'm sure parents would welcome that but it won't make if that if that analogy that Tim makes is right a 10 minute walk is inaccessible for any child most children independently before they're 10.

SPEAKER_02 34:22

I mean there's some I think there's some really interesting stuff that that people like planners are doing linked to place efficiency and it's worth saying that the Scottish place efficiency duty is in is is in planning law. Yeah. And there's people like Etiv in in Glasgow who's a who's a you know a planner and has led on Glasgow's place efficiency assessment and I think whilst some of the planning policy in particular active travel policy might not yet talk about place efficiency and there's still that kind of gap. There is a movement towards creating conditions that are much more about people's freedom of movement, ease of access to you know the proximity of spaces which is very well aligned with what we're talking about with place efficiency. So I think there's there's some really great partnerships we've seen some great like Camarthancha's planning policy and stuff like that is it you know there's some really great examples out there I think and and that you know what we really need to be talking about and I think this links to like you know the agenda around placemaking green and blue infrastructure sustainable urban drainage active travel is this idea of creating playable neighborhoods. You know the the classic you know the kind of classic advocacy tool to do with adults is to go and draw a map of where you play and and and still you know designated play areas feature within those but no none of those maps are just designated play areas. They are based on multiple different spaces and the routes in which you get around them. And the same is absolutely true is if you find a community where children report high satisfaction with their opportunities for play and they play out regularly and you go and map those communities, what you find is children accessing an abundance of spaces for play. And I think this is really powerful stuff for for people involved in space design is that these these examples exist. So we've got a particular favourite which we think is the best example we've ever come across of play sufficiency Welsh Welsh kind of rural village. Well children there were telling was were reeling off 16 different places that they could play including three designated play areas at different corners of the estate as well as the river which is a little stream the forest which is a couple of trees uh you know the top shops the bottom shops and stuff like that and then they could tell you how they get between those places I mean they can draw them basically and you go and look and there's these desire lines all these traffic free routes it is I can't remember the guy from is he Rotterdam or WEM I think his name is you know this idea it play space webs that's what we should be able to overlay onto a neighborhood and go look there are 15 different places where you could go and play. Some of them might have equipment in some of them might not but the idea is that children repeatedly tell us they go to different places to do different things. Yep and that they want a variety of experience and also that where you have more spaces there are less issues to do with the connect contested nature of space. Yeah because children can negotiate who they share space with. It's like adults its own level doesn't it yeah if you made all adults go to the same pub we'd probably not all be that happy about it. Yeah. But of course adults get loads of choice don't they about where they can go and spend their time and who with well children want to be able to do the same thing. Yeah. And they're very good at making do if they've got something to make do with yeah what they want is lots of different places that you can visit within very easy access of home and that needs to be supported by routes that if are if aren't completely traffic free are very low traffic. We might even think I mean you know we'll we'll we'll we'll say his name twice because he's that good but Tim Gill's thing about turning the traditional playground inside out you know what if we took the same amount of equipment but spread it out across a neighbourhood and say you went I'm going down there to go on the Cantileva swing I'm over there to the Tellytubby hill and I'm going down there to I don't know shoot hoops or whatever. That's what the neighborhoods look like where children say it's really good for playing it it's very very rarely that one designated space is going to be enough. So one of the big concerns I think and this is largely linked to austerity has been this rationalizing of play areas you know where we go we can't afford to maintain all these different little spaces so we'll have one more expensive destination space that that isn't fitting with what children are telling us they need from their play children would rather have a space that was simply designed had a bit of equipment in it but had multiple places that they could go to to play than than just one destination space that they'll probably end up having to be taken to so in terms of working with people collaborating with people educating people trying to get them to build that understanding I've got a question here which might actually be another hour and a half response so don't feel any pressure to fully fully respond.

SPEAKER_01 39:39

But um you know how do you have those conversations with people where they're citing time restrictions budget restrictions or um different priorities where where you're trying to move people along don't beat them up about it.

SPEAKER_00 39:54

Okay. And don't and don't don't don't shout it at them okay I think I think what we do is we we approach it in the same way that we do with children really and we h hold a spurce for them to think about it through a slightly different lens. And what we often say is don't beat yourself up about the things that surface for you in this conversation because you are bombarded by priorities and values and constructs of this, that and the other um through the windscreen. They're all coming through the windscreen constantly and and plays and has been constructed for the last best part of 150 years as something that's a bit infantile a bit um frivolous and we're just going to hold the rear view mirror up in that windscreen and that's all you're gonna look through for the next two hours. You've got the freedom to do that forget about everything else and let's think about what would what would children do if they had enough time and freedom and space to play and very often the the the answers are within them aren't they? I very rarely find ourselves telling somebody about what the answers are. We we hold the space and provide the line of inquiry that leads them to the answer and most people do. And and most people then go, oh my God, I can't believe I'm doing that I remember that head teacher after the 2013 um as part of the 2013 place efficiency assessment and we talked about the time for play and how time for play was structured and we we've just sort of said you know how how how do children experience lunchtime play and then and the conversation got on to how lunchtime play it staggered we stagger it because we can't get all the children through and just tell us about that staggering um well year two year one and two go in first and then year three go in in the in the middle and then year four, five six that they're very quick because they eat the food quicker and all of that. And she's like you know what that means that the year threes get two really shitty short periods of play doesn't it because they're in the middle as well how long are they in the middle for she well they're in the middle all year. Oh my god that means year threes actually only get two 17 minute bits of play for the whole year. Yeah you go how could you address that time issue?

SPEAKER_02 42:20

Yeah well we could revolve it couldn't we right there you go yeah I think I I I I think I think you know again I think historically as there's been a lot of you know and I've done this again as playworkers you know it's soapboxing it's it's hammering about the benefits of play but I think more and more we're like if you give people the opportunity to spend some time reflecting on this stuff to actually find out you know I think the the most powerful thing we do is present the findings from children back to adults and go this is what children tell this is where they're finding opportunities for play this is where they're not and more often than not people arrive at their own conclusion about the value of play rather than having to be told play matters they get to experience exactly that stuff. You know the first thing we do with schools is like do some quick wins you know low risk cheap stuff get the dressing up out start the music put the bubble machine on and they only have to see it working to start going oh right we could get so much more out of this and I think the same applies when we do work with local authorities. You know it's that kind of tactical urbanism type stuff it's like have a go at putting a rope swing up in that tree and see what happens temporarily. You know if you talk about the Play Streets pro you know what what you know that is and a brilliant example isn't it of a low cost experimental approach where you go what happens what if we just shut this this road let's have a go at it and then everybody starts to see all the myriad benefits that come from that. And they therefore value play in an Of itself, I think one of the key things we found from the research on doing place efficiency is the importance of people just having a chance to work on a project together.

SPEAKER_00 44:09

And I think as well that like that just in that so much of this is really about the permission to think differently.

SPEAKER_03 44:15

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 44:16

And when, particularly at local authority level, any level, but particularly at local authority level, so much of it then isn't about more money. So much of it is about how might we redistribute this money, how will we use this money that we've already using to better effect, and now we understand how we might make it a better effect.

SPEAKER_02 44:37

I think it's also just worth mentioning the actual language of place efficiency, I think, makes a difference. And I think, you know, people like Jen and Leeds have said this that having been a local authority officer myself, there's something about the idea that what we've got to do is make it good enough. We haven't got to make it absolutely amazing because that feels very difficult. But but I think lots of local authority officers can work with the idea that we could make this good enough.

SPEAKER_01 45:04

Do you know it's been absolutely brilliant talking to you guys? I wish we, you know, I w I I wish we could just keep going. I feel like I've something shifted. I feel like I've learned a lot. And I'm hoping that people listening will feel exactly the same, exactly the same way. And you know, they want to learn more, they can go to Ludicology and they can look at the work that you've done and find out more about that. I have one last question that I'm gonna leave you with. If you could click your fingers and change one thing tomorrow to make play better, what would it be?

SPEAKER_00 45:41

I would, I think one of the it's it's I would either roll out the 20, 20 mile an hour limit bloody everywhere in England as well as as well as Wales, because I think I think I am seeing more children and parents on bikes going to school where that's possible, and getting out and about and being participant in the real world rather than in the back of a car. And I think it's I think it's the fact that it's just an infinitely safer place for that to happen. Yeah. Um, and if I couldn't do that, so I would go, every single school should be doing amazing play because the time and the space is there, and that would significantly increase children's satisfaction at a population level. One intervention.

SPEAKER_02 46:30

Um and I would fund a place efficiency lead officer in every local authority. If if if funding was going to be invested anywhere in play, that's where I think it should be prioritised. I think that those kind of people where they have the capacity and kind of uh capability and kind of permission to do the work, you know, and I and ideally they would be people who could have come through a kind of playwork degree type approach. Um I think they can bring all kinds of partners together. I think they can lever in all kinds of different funding for it, and I think they can oversee the type of kind of yeah, rolling assessment and action planning process that would create the kind of organisational conditions for for many more of the you know types of interventions.

SPEAKER_01 47:23

Brilliant. Well, it's been an absolutely brilliant conversation. Mike, Ben, thank you so much for your time. And uh let's speak again soon.

SPEAKER_00 47:31

Yeah, thank you. Thank you for hosting us. It's been it's been a brilliant conversation.

SPEAKER_02 47:35

Yeah, I really enjoyed it. Thanks for doing this podcast. I think it's a thing that has real value and needs to be out there and hopefully brings more people together in talking about their uh shared collective aims, and then we're gonna be able to do that.