Why is Chapter 8 training not appropriate for resident-led play streets?

Playing Out, with our partners Sustrans have created an alternative training resource for guiding residents to manage and steward resident-led play streets and school streets. Watch the 18min film How to Steward a School Street or Play Street.

You can embed this to your council play street pages, or simply send it to all interested residents.

Chapter 8 training, including the 1-day Traffic Management for Community Events, is not appropriate for play streets. This training is geared up for much larger events using the carriageway, such as large-scale sporting events (marathons etc), parades, community events or roadworks. These events use a range of streets, often including larger roads with higher levels of traffic than would ever need to be dealt with on a play street. These events are also normally organised by funded organisations with paid employees. In the case of roadworks, these need to be managed by trained operatives.

Play streets take place on very quiet streets outside of rush hour, so a bit like street parties, they need a fresh approach. Residents organise play streets in their spare time, alongside jobs, childcare etc. They rarely have the time, or the resources to attend a 1-day training which costs around £100 per person.

In Bristol, play streets have been running without Chapter 8 training since 2011, using all the video resources on the Playing Out website, in particular our Step 4 video which has a thorough demonstration of how to close a road.

90+ councils across the UK have followed the Bristol model and do not ask residents to undertake Chapter 8 training.

Read more about how you can support residents to safely manage small-scale road closures.