Introduction

In 2002 the Children's Society and the Children's Play Council called on every council and school in Britain to carry out what they called a ‘daisy chain audit’. This curious name stemmed from the discovery that somewhere in Britain children had been told not to make daisy chains because of some suspected hazard. The audit's purpose was to expose excessive or unnecessary restrictions on children's play activities.

Contemporaneously, the Play Safety Forum, a group of the main national organisations in England with an interest in safety and children's play, published an important pamphlet called ‘Managing risk in play provision’ (Play Safety Forum, 2002). This was part of a new campaign to address a growing concern about how safety was being addressed in children's play provision and its effect upon play opportunities. In 2003 a European Play Safety Forum was established with similar goals and agreed a statement of its own in 2005. Even Sir Digby Jones (2005), the Director-General of the Confederation of British Industry, felt drawn to speak out about a culture that ‘raises [children] to believe that risk did not exist because of emphasis on rights and an excessive concern for health and safety’.

It is reasonable to ask ‘What is going on?’ and ‘Why has all this been necessary?’. It is surely common knowledge that children have a fundamental right to play as stated in Article 31 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, and it is hard to imagine that anyone would seriously wish to deter children from participation in this natural and beneficial activity.

A hint of an answer lies in research commissioned for National Playday in 2002 by the Children's Society and the Children's Play Council. This exposed a growing culture of caution in local authority and private parks and playgrounds in that play equipment was being removed or made less challenging, ‘dumbed down’ in common parlance, and that children were being prevented from taking part in traditional activities such as doing handstands and playing with yo-yos.

The Children's Society and the Children's Play Council also surveyed over 500 children aged mainly from seven to 11 years to find out their views and experiences regarding play and personal freedom.