OPEN LETTER TO GOVERNMENT: It All Starts with Play!

Dear Chancellor,

This Wednesday, as you deliver the Comprehensive Spending Review, children across the country will mark the International Day of Play, a global celebration of Article 31 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratified by the UK over thirty years ago.

We’re asking Government to seize this moment by backing:

• A new, cross-departmental National Play Strategy, underpinned by

• A statutory Play Sufficiency duty on local authorities, backed by

• £125 million per year, starting April 2026, to restore and protect play

Once, play was part of everyday life: building dens, climbing trees, skipping ropes, hopscotch on the pavement, kickabouts in the street, making up games, hanging out after school. It was accepted, expected, everywhere, every day.

Now it’s the exception. ‘No Ball Games’ signs, traffic, risk-aversion and shrinking public space have squeezed play out of childhood and society. The decline isn’t anecdotal. It’s measurable:

• Half of all adventure playgrounds have closed since 1980

• Outdoor play has halved in a generation

• Just 3 in 10 children play outside on their own street

• The most deprived urban areas have the least access to playgrounds

• Play deprivation fuels anxiety, loneliness and inactivity, with costs passed to schools, the NHS and society

In 2008, Government launched the first and only national play strategy, backed by £235 million over 12 years. Restoring that commitment today would mean £125 million per year. To put that in perspective, it’s about six hours of NHS England’s daily spend. That’s just £10.40 per child per year, 87p a month or 20p a week.

Play strengthens families, improves mental health, builds safer communities, and boosts school readiness and resilience. It’s universal, low-cost, accessible, inclusive, and high-impact — a public good and a poverty intervention.

The Government’s emerging Child Poverty Strategy rightly commits to improving children’s lives. Play should be included as a core measure because it works. Since our open letter last summer, progress has followed:

• Legislation for smoke-free playgrounds

• Protection for ‘formal play spaces’ in the National Planning Policy Framework

• The first parliamentary debate on play in more than a decade

• A Play Sufficiency amendment tabled to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Momentum is real. Now we need commitment. The Spending Review falls on the International Day of Play. There could be no clearer message and no better moment to put childhood where it belongs: at the heart of public policy.

Because if we’re serious about fairness, serious about health, and serious about the future, it all starts with play!

Eugene Minogue
Executive Director