Disabled children are being denied equal access to play
A new report from the Children’s Commissioner exposes the barriers disabled children face in accessing playgrounds, local play opportunities and holiday provision. Play England supports its recommendations and calls for action to ensure every child can realise their right to play.
The report, Disabled children’s access to play and activities, draws directly on children’s experiences. Their message is clear: they want to play locally, alongside other children, but too many places are inaccessible, poorly maintained or simply not designed with them in mind.
The Children’s Commissioner makes clear that disabled children have the same right to play as every other child, yet face greater barriers to realising that right. These include inaccessible play areas, insufficient care and support, poverty and transport costs.
Children want to use their local playgrounds
Children and families told the Commissioner that there are not enough accessible parks and playgrounds.
One 13-year-old asked for: “More accessible parks for visually impaired children.”
A seven-year-old boy called for parks that work for wheelchair and mobility-aid users: “That’s not just a wheelchair swing.”
Children identified practical changes that would allow them to play, including accessible swings, slides and roundabouts, communication boards, maintained wheelchair paths and secure fencing. These are not requests for separate or lesser places. Disabled children want the freedom to use their ordinary neighbourhood spaces and to play with friends, siblings and other children.
Accessibility also means providing a rich range of play experiences. Installing one item labelled as “accessible” does not, on its own, make a playground inclusive. Children with different physical, sensory, communication and learning needs must be able to enter, move around and find meaningful ways to play.
Poor maintenance can prevent play completely
The report also shows that the condition of a playground can determine whether disabled children can use it at all.
Children and families raised concerns about rubbish, inaccessible surfaces and poorly maintained pathways. These conditions can present particular risks to children who spend time close to the ground, put objects in their mouths or rely on wheelchairs and mobility aids.
As one 14-year-old said: “Space near home to be better kept, more special needs or accessible parks, pathways maintained for wheelchairs.”
For some children, a damaged surface or blocked route does not make play more difficult. It can make play impossible.
England lacks clear data and accountability
The report identifies a basic failure in England’s approach to playgrounds: there is no complete national picture of playground accessibility and no clear government accountability for ensuring disabled children can use them.
The Children’s Commissioner calls for clear delivery and accountability at local level. Councils and, ultimately, Mayors should know:
How many playgrounds are in their area
What condition they are in
How accessible they are
Where new or improved provision is needed
They should be accountable for building and improving playgrounds. The Government should gather complete playground accessibility data from local authorities and make it public.
The report recommends that government gather and publish complete accessibility data so families can find suitable playgrounds and communities can hold decision-makers to account. You cannot plan, fund or improve sufficient play opportunities without knowing what exists, who can use it and where children are being excluded.
Play England strongly supports this recommendation. It also speaks directly to the wider evidence gap we are actively addressing through Playces, our new national spatial evidence platform for play, developed with the University of Sheffield and due to launch later this year.
Playces will bring together national and local data to show where playgrounds and other play provision are located, how far children need to travel, which communities have weaker provision, and how access relates to child population and deprivation. It will give local authorities and other partners a consistent evidence base for identifying gaps, targeting investment and assessing play sufficiency.
Playces is not a substitute for consistent local accessibility audits. Councils will still need to collect, verify and maintain information about the condition, accessibility and inclusivity of their playgrounds. However, it could provide the national infrastructure through which that information becomes visible, comparable and useful for families, communities and decision-makers.
An immediate opportunity: the £18m Playground Fund
The report has been published at an important point for local playground investment. Sixty-six local authorities are currently preparing proposals for the Government’s £18m Playground Fund, which will create, improve or enhance up to 200 playgrounds in areas with higher levels of child income deprivation and weaker existing provision.
Each recipient authority will receive £270,000 to create, improve or enhance three playgrounds. The fund requires those projects to improve quality, accessibility, inclusion and long-term sustainability, and to be shaped through meaningful engagement with children, families and communities. Authorities should also show how their investment contributes to wider local play sufficiency.
The Children’s Commissioner’s findings should directly inform that work. Every recipient authority should test its proposals against the experiences described in this report and involve disabled children and their families throughout site selection, design, delivery and evaluation. Accessibility and inclusion must be designed in from the start, not added after the main decisions have been made.
The £18m Playground Fund is a welcome first step. However, it is targeted, time-limited funding for 66 local authorities. It cannot, on its own, address the wider absence of consistent data, long-term investment and national accountability across England.
The evidence and spatial methodology underpinning Playces also contributed to the evidence base used in developing the £18m Playground Fund.
Barriers extend beyond the playground
An accessible playground is of little use if children cannot reach it or do not have the support needed to play there.
The report describes families unable to visit playgrounds because one parent cannot safely support a disabled child and their siblings at the same time. Children with complex medical needs may rarely leave home because families do not receive enough reliable care support.
Transport is another major barrier. Disabled children may depend more heavily on buses and adapted transport, face higher costs and need to travel further to find accessible provision.
These issues show why accessibility cannot be reduced to playground equipment. It includes the route to the space, its location and condition, the support available and whether children are genuinely welcomed once they arrive.
The £18m Playground Fund guidance describes this as an ‘integrated’ approach: connecting playgrounds to the wider neighbourhood, including routes, nearby homes, schools, parks, streets, community facilities and green infrastructure. A playground simply cannot be considered genuinely accessible and integrated if the journey to it remains disconnected, unsafe, unaffordable or impossible.
Holiday provision must also enable play
The report’s indicative data suggest that children with identified SEND who were eligible for free school meals could have been less likely to access the Holiday Activities and Food (HAF) programme in summer 2025.
An estimated minimum of 14% attended, compared with an estimated 22% of eligible children without identified SEND. The Commissioner concludes that tens of thousands of children with SEND could be missing out, while cautioning that the figures are based on self-reported local authority data and do not capture SEND-specialist places.
The report calls for HAF funding to reflect the actual costs of inclusion, including transport and transport staffing. It also identifies the need for higher staffing ratios, appropriate training and the resources required to understand and plan for each child’s needs.
This matters, but holiday provision should not substitute for children’s everyday right to play. Disabled children need inclusive opportunities close to home throughout the year, not only specialist activities during school holidays.
HAF is one part of the local system that must support play sufficiency. That system must also include accessible neighbourhood spaces, informal opportunities to play, staffed play provision, skilled people and the practical support children need to participate.
All children means all children
Play England’s strategy, It All Starts With Play! has a clear objective: to restore a play-based childhood for all children in England by 2035.
The Children’s Commissioner’s report strengthens the case for a new National Play Strategy and a statutory Play Sufficiency duty. Local and national government must assess whether disabled children have sufficient places, opportunities and support to play, then act where they do not.
Accessible equipment matters, but accessible items alone do not make a playground inclusive.
The Government’s own Playground Fund guidance draws an important distinction:
Accessible means that children and caregivers can physically reach, enter, move through and use the playground and its equipment, with physical, sensory and cognitive barriers reduced.
Inclusive means that children can participate meaningfully, feel welcome and play together, with opportunities for different ages, abilities and ways of playing that avoid separating or stigmatising children.
Integrated means that the playground is connected to the wider neighbourhood, public realm, routes and community infrastructure.
In practice, this means disabled children having the freedom to reach their local playground, enter it, move through it, choose how they play and take part alongside other children. That should be an ordinary part of childhood, not an exception.
The £18m Playground Fund can begin to improve individual places. Playces can help build the evidence needed to understand provision and target investment. But lasting change requires a national system.
A new cross-government National Play Strategy should provide the leadership, standards, investment and accountability needed to restore children’s freedom to play. A statutory Play Sufficiency duty should underpin the strategy, requiring every local authority to assess and secure sufficient time, space, opportunity and freedom to play, with specific attention to accessibility, inclusion, integration and inequality.
Without that national framework, access will continue to depend too heavily on where a child lives, the resources available locally and how hard their family is able to fight for support.
“No disabled child should have to travel across their town or city to find somewhere they are able to play and feel welcome. This report makes clear that equal access to play cannot be left to chance. The £18m Playground Fund is a welcome first step, and Playces will help build the evidence needed to target investment. But lasting change requires the Government to introduce a new National Play Strategy, underpinned by a statutory Play Sufficiency duty requiring every local authority to assess and secure time, space, opportunity and freedom to play, and backed by dedicated investment of £125m per year.”
Eugene Minogue, Executive Director, Play England
Read the full report: Disabled children’s access to play and activities | Children's Commissioner for England