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October 2007
Posted by: webmaster

Get Your Own Outdoor Play Area


  Your Environment      


The National Playing Fields Association (NPFA), the charity that safeguards and improves the United Kingdom’s playing fields, outdoor recreation areas and playgrounds, has changed its working name to Fields in Trust (FIT) and adopted a contemporary visual identity to reflect its expanding role. One example of how a community worked to get somewhere for the local youth to play safely outdoors is in their article "Countryside no-go areas for children."
The level fields of Lincolnshire stretch out around the village of Amber Hill in every direction as far as the eye can see. Three miles to the south, the A1121 runs between Sleaford and Boston - not everyone's idea of a major thoroughfare, but the closest thing around here to a main road. This, especially on a sunny day, is everyone's idea of rural England. Children here may not have the coffee bars and cinemas and all the other excitements of city life, but at least they are never short of somewhere to play.

Wrong. Or at least, it was wrong until a couple of years ago. Until the villagers took matters into their own hands and set about raising money to buy and equip a playing field, Amber Hill and the countryside around it were one big no-go area for the children.

"There were youngsters playing football in the road at all hours - accidents just waiting to happen," says Jane Webb, chair of the Amber Hill Playing Field Committee. "We didn't have anyone killed, thank God, but there was a whole series of near misses. Now at least they have somewhere to go where they can be safe and get on with the business of being children."

The exciting about Amber Hill is that it is a success story. Thanks to the drive and determination of the local people, with a little help from the NPFA and various grant-giving bodies, there is a field there with swings, and area for skateboarding, and a rebound wall for ball games - but there are literally thousands of other villages in Britain that haven't been so lucky. Now they can look to Amber Hill for inspiration.

People always see the lack of playgrounds and open spaces as an urban problem, but increasingly, the countryside where we fondly imagine children can wander off and play is privately-owned where they cannot go, or working farms where they venture at their peril. From the church tower in the local market town of Sherborne, for example, you can look in every direction, and see green fields stretching to the horizon - and not one where children are able to play.

So what can be done about it? Well, it's not legislation, or even government money, though a bit of both would be more than welcome. As the Amber Hill experience showed, it's the determination of local communities that makes the difference. There is often money out there available in grants from various organisations - Amber Hill was lucky, for instance, because there is a landfill site nearby, making the village eligible for a £10,000 grant from the landfill tax credit money of Waste Recycling Group (WRG), administered and distributed by Waste Recycling Environmental (WREN). That's one example of the way that the NPFA can often put communities in touch with grant-giving bodies, and help them with making their application.

Now, we've received a grant ourselves - £500,000 over the next three years from the Big Lottery Fund. The money will go towards building up the network of County Playing Fields Associations through which local communities in the countryside can work to provide places to play, or to improve old, run-down, or dangerous fields. Our aim in the NPFA is always to help local people to help themselves, and that's how this money will be spent. With more information, better training, and better communications, different communities will be able to help each other, so that more villages, like Amber Hill, will be able not just to set up fields where their children can play, but also to protect those fields from development for ever, so the benefit will last for generations.

So, what is FIT?



Fields in Trust (FIT) is the only independent UK wide organisation dedicated to protecting and improving outdoor sports and play spaces and facilities.

We want to make sure that everyone – young and old alike, and wherever they live - has somewhere nearby to go for healthy outdoor activities. Through our work we improve the well-being of millions of people nationwide.

How do we do this? We:
• Protect individual playing fields – permanently - from development
• Improve the facilities on playing fields
• Influence government policy – to make sure our remaining fields aren’t sold off
• Campaign to save fields under threat
• Help local communities to manage their fields
• Work with partner organisations to enhance local communities through improved facilities and activities
• Increase awareness of the value of playing fields.

For more information, please contact Alison Moore-Gwyn, CEO, National Playing Fields Association, at 0208 735 3390

Note: You can find out more about Fields In Trust by visiting their website at www.fieldsintrust.org

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