What a brilliant @playingout.bsky.social conference today! Children's right to play is more important than ever. Let's make sure that more (all!) children can play, more of the time.
5 teenagers, 2 bikes
Clearly more than a month!
Have the most recent Pride in Place neighbourhoods (40 announced on 4th Feb) been named?
Can’t find a list anywhere.
To be fair, this is pretty unscientific and random sample I'm reviewing (just out of curiosity at this stage), and I am finding some with more concrete, focused plans (with indicative budgets attached).
There's an awful lot of similarity in the Pride in Place plans already submitted in Phase 1, directly reflecting the government's key PIP aims and the "pre-approved interventions" and not yet a lot of detail about the tailored ways these might play out in partic places, not much place specificity.
Cycling side-by-side isn’t bad behaviour—it’s human behaviour. It’s how parents talk to their kids. How friends catch up. How communities form.
If bicycle infrastructure is too narrow for people to ride and talk together, the problem isn’t the people. It’s the infrastructure.
Nørrebro, Copenhagen.
No one: *
Cargo Bike People:
I've just watched this short video by Ukrainian artist Varvara Uhlik, about her relationship to the Soviet playgrounds she grew up with; very thought-provoking, opening up thinking about their aesthetics, politics and legacies.
Thanks to @wendyrussell.bsky.social for tagging me on LinkedIn -
I have dozens of pictures like this from my time researching/living in Poland. For all their faults, socialist-era housing estates created a lot of green space and space for play, often designed to enable superivision at a distance, from apartment windows.
The Chronicle set up an Ashington to Tynemouth travel challenge. The Northumberland Line + metro was 4 seconds longer than the car journey, but was cheaper. And both the public transport trips sound a lot nicer than the car.
(For some reason this is “premium” content: archive.is/202603121428...)
Pssst! Pass it on… Myself, @drrobertchapman.bsky.social and @emilywebz.bsky.social are looking to set up a radical bookshop in Newcastle! Follow us over at Instagram www.instagram.com/p/DVve2wlDXh...
A couple of questions:
1) Can anyone recommend any (critical, early) reviews of Pride in Place that I might not have found?
2) Is anyone familiar with examples of Pride in Place boards talking about or engaging with space for play? I have found a few but guess there are more.
Thank you!
Here’s @solveschoolrun.bsky.social with their manifesto for the London council elections.
These could be an ambitious ask for all prospective councillors, not just in London.
bsky.app/profile/solv...
With local elections looming we're busy asking candidates to put our #StreetsForKids asks into their manifestos:
• An effective School Street for every school
• Access to a cargo bike for every family
• A child-friendly kerbside
👍️ It's looking good!
👉 www.solvetheschoolrun.org/streetsforkids
How Paris beat the car www.ft.com/content/882e...
Removing through traffic from your city centre ensures mums and sons can safely cycle through the city side by side.
Design streets for people, and people will use them.
A great article encouraging Dutch voters to think about children and play in the upcoming municipal elections.
Would be good to see a similar approach in the UK as we approach big local elections on May 7th, where national issues might eclipse other vital concerns.
(Google translate if needed!)
Great thread here from Worcester play champion @positivelyplayful.bsky.social who's been at @playingout.bsky.social's big event in Bristol celebrating and advocating for children's neighbourhood play.
So sorry not to be there, but so pleased to see such amazing conversations 🛹⚽🛴🤸♂️
💪🥁📣PLS SHARE! @ucunorthumbria.bsky.social ON STRIKE 16, 17, 25, 26, 27 March AND 20, 21, 22, 23, 24 April. 👉👉👉25 March = NATIONAL RALLY TO PROTECT PAY AND PENSIONS 1PM at Monument in NEWCASTLE with UCU GS Jo Grady and President Elect Dyfrig Jones. All welcome.
'Teaching-only staff at Sheffield Hallam University are set to be moved into a subsidiary firm, leaving research intensive scholars the only academics still being employed directly by the institution.'
Utterly inequitable & betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the teaching/research nexus. 1/3
I’d say, come for the skateboarding, stay for the bikes!
More "play as a social and environmental justice issue" content - not only are facilities like this free, accessible and social, but they will be increasingly important in environmental and climate crises, to mitigate pollution and extreme weather.
Our dependency on fossil fuels makes us vulnerable. Wars across the world are pushing up prices for households in the UK.
Why keep waiting for the next crisis? We need to transition to clean power as fast as we can to protect people and our economy.
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
I'll take any excuse to repost Chris Killip. This is what the area looked like a year later.
Terraced housing, Wallsend, Tyneside, mid-1970s, photo by Chris Killip (1946-2020).
Very sorry to hear this. She’s beautiful!
This is all worth a read, but I especially liked this extra example:
“in Youngstown, during the summer months from 2016 to 2018, violent crime fell at twice the rate on streets surrounding vacant lots transformed into gardens and play spaces by community residents“
Doorstep play space matters!
Two key conclusions:
1) “allocation is shaped not by the intensity of need, but by constituency boundaries and political calculations”
2) reflecting political pressure, neighbourhoods facing significant challenges “must undertake deep, inclusive, community engagement work in less than a year”
Some thoughts on what the Gorton and Denton byelection means for pursuing climate action in the contemporary UK political landscape. www.just.ac.uk/news/2026/03...
