7. Will the First Minister make a statement on the accessibility of children's play areas? OAQ52559

All children benefit from being outside, interacting with their environment and developing through play. Statutory guidance directs local authorities, working with partners, to consider the diverse needs of all children and young people in their area. 

Thank you, First Minister, but I'm sure that anyone would be moved by the story that broke last week of an eight-year-old boy, Kobi Barrow, who helped design a park that could be used by both able-bodied and disabled children, and he did that in memory of his best friend, Rhianna, who sadly passed away in 2016. It emerged that Rhianna had to travel for three hours from her home to play in a playground that had suitable equipment and he wanted to rectify that for the other children who lived more locally. First Minister, what steps are the Welsh Government taking to ensure that playgrounds in Wales have inclusive play equipment for children and how are we going to monitor progress of that throughout Wales?

Well, the statutory guidance directs local authorities to consider the diverse needs of all the children and young people in their area, including those with disabilities. I know that, in April, the Minister for Children, Older People and Social Care visited Oaklands play area in Rhondda Cynon Taf, which is a good example of an accessible play area. It shows what can be achieved. In May, local authorities were reminded of the expectation for each local authority to develop a clearly identified play section on their websites. That information should be made available in a way that supports children and families to know what's available in their local areas. It should also include actions that local authorities propose to take to achieve sufficiency and improve inclusive play opportunities. I can also say that the Groundwork Wales SNAP Cymru Sustainable Play project trained play workers in disability awareness and inclusion and that was extremely successful in engaging disabled people in outdoor play.

Well, of course, you hit on the word 'play', and you said that everybody should have access to be able to play, especially young children. We talk in this place a lot about obesity, about making our kids healthy and fit and active and all the rest of it, and yet, First Minister, what I'd be interested to know is what is your Government doing—your Government, the one here in Wales—to ensure that the planning system in Wales takes due regard of the necessity to have safe, accessible play areas, close to homes that are currently being built? Because too many times you get to a situation where the developer will actually, perhaps, through the use of a 106 agreement or something, put aside an area for a play area, but it happens to be the other side of a busy main road or it happens to be the other side of the village where kids can't access it. In the old days, we used to put our play areas near our houses so that the parent at home or the carer could look out and just check the kid was still safe and out there playing. We can't do this now, and I've seen planners use the pavement, the green grass by the sides of pavements, as part of the square footage to add to the so-called 'playing area' available on a housing development. How can we stop that? How can we make safe play areas that small kids can access all the time, where people can watch them and know that they are truly, truly protected?

Well, an effective planning authority will do just that. I've seen it happen in my own authority where play areas are accessible on new housing estates and very accessible, so there's no reason why that can't be emulated by authorities elsewhere through the use of section 106 agreements and through the use of planners ensuring that play areas are available for new residents on new developments. So, there is a responsibility on local authorities and their planners to make sure that they follow the best practice that I've seen elsewhere in Wales.