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The Atlantic!
Alison has run her own regular play street and supported others to run them across her area through the community group Play.Meet.Street. We now have the pleasure of sharing her inspiring story:
I live in North Shields, a town on the North Tyneside coast, about 9 miles to the east of Newcastle. Our street is close to the town centre, made up of terraced houses of various sizes with some flats. It’s quite a quiet and wide street, but it is also often used as a cut-through by drivers. There are lots of families with children living on the street – more and more each year.
We moved onto our street when my daughter was about 6 months old (she’s now 13). It was quite a mixed street, but over time as more families arrived and my daughter was no longer a baby I started to think, “How can I make a difference to this changing street?”.
As a geography academic, I have a keen interest in streets, neighbourhoods and how we all connect. So play streets came into my radar through that lens. But I also wanted to get to know more people on my street and for my daughter to have friends here. I found out that North Tyneside was running a play streets pilot, led by House of Objects with support from Playing Out and Play England. So I talked to my neighbours and got in touch with House of Objects.
We ran the first play street in December 2015 when my daughter was 4. Even on a freezing winter’s day, you quickly realise what an amazing space it is when the street is filled with play. The atmosphere changes. It just feels like things are possible. And because the children are playing freely, adults are free to chat and get to know one another. It was so much fun, we were hooked! We quickly applied for a year’s worth of dates from then.
We’ve been on this street for almost 13 years now and I can’t imagine leaving – I know everyone. I didn’t have those relationships before playing out.
There was one time, shortly after I separated from Lucy’s dad, she had a terrible fever and I’d run out of Calpol. I was completely on my own with a sick child. In the end, someone who had been to the play street dropped some to my doorstep! These things might seem little, but they made a big difference for us.
We went through a stage of doing Friday after-school play streets – Lucy loved bringing back friends and then those friends started to do it on their street! She’s grown up knowing that this is her street too. She was able to knock on a neighbour’s door to get help once when she got home earlier than me. There is safety in being known and knowing people. It’s powerful. This is all thanks to play streets.
I also feel she’s more interested in walking or cycling to school. She’s been litter picking on her bike with friends and loves the independence! I think she’s proud of how we’ve made positive change in our community.
We’d been running our play street for about a year and it was so positive, I started to find out more. We were already sharing road closure kit with other streets but I hadn’t made contact with Playing Out by that point.
As the pilot scheme came to an end House of Objects asked if anyone was interested in continuing things. I said yes without knowing too much about what that meant! Two other play street organisers called Lynsey and Jane did the same without me knowing – a Forest School trainee and a PE teacher – so we had a variety of motivations. We were supported to set up a constituted community group together – Play.Meet.Street – and explained we had taken over to the events team at the Council. It was a bit daunting at first as we all had other responsibilities.
I quickly found out what was going on in different parts of the country and was very much into it as a bigger idea rather than just on my street. Jane and Lynsey went along along to the Playing Out Activator Day in Bristol in 2017, and one of us tried to get to each of the subsequent ones. I attended the Activator day in Birmingham in 2019 and I remember feeling really hopeful that day. I was in a room full of amazing people, totally committed to the idea of play streets. That was quite powerful.
In total, we’ve had over 107 streets play out (as of early 2024). I feel success breeds success and the number of streets grew relatively fast. We won Awards for All funding in 2017 which covered road closure kit, promotion flyers, posters and printing costs. We started doing active promotion, taking over the social media pages. There was clear peer to peer momentum which was great. Over the years, we’ve attended school fairs and also held a few public meetings for people who are interested.
Since then, we’ve applied for more Awards for All funding and some post-Covid community grants and been awarded approximately £10k in total. We’ve also been supported in lots of ways, including through activator grants by Playing Out. This has been a big help. But because PlayMeetStreet was just a constituted community group, we couldn’t pay ourselves. We had other jobs, but we did it because we were driven in other ways.
We chose to give a lot of support and were always there for people needing help: providing kit, responding to queries, helping to deal with concerned neighbours, all sorts. We had experience and were prepared to pass it on. We were prepared for anything I feel, looking back. Residents always felt someone had their back. We also offered a Whatsapp group for peer support, which meant that others could share their experiences too.
One was that it grew very fast and we only had so much capacity! We were getting play street kit to streets and doing a lot of work and it took up a lot of time. But none of it was paid! We could have chosen to become a CIC, to pay ourselves, but that felt a bigger commitment and responsibility, and we all had jobs and kids. Also, formalising it could have meant more pressure. We didn’t have any experience of setting up an organisation. We came to it as mothers who just wanted to do something for our communities.
After a few years, Lynsey and Jane had to reduce what they were doing, due to other commitments, so I’ve done quite a bit by myself recently, often with the support of some of resident-organisers from across North Tyneside. But I’ve loved it. We had some tough times, such as having to speak to angry neighbours on behalf of resident organisers, but it’s never as bad as you think once you start talking and it’s pretty rare.
One thing I’ve loved is cycling around all the play streets, on the first Sunday of the month, when a lot of our streets play out. I feel to have created space for all those children to have played out, there’s very little I would’ve changed if I’m honest.
It’s been very fun and rewarding! And through my work I’ve been more and more convinced of the value of play streets in so many ways. I just think it’s awesome.
I’ve always wanted to make play streets more accessible and support communities facing bigger disadvantages or challenges. All children should have the opportunity to play out. But I’ve now recognised that I don’t have the time and capacity that is needed to do this, and to grow where it needs to grow. I also got to the point where after 7 years I just couldn’t keep going any more. But we’ve created a really strong foundation for play streets to go forward, which is amazing.
The survey we conducted in 2022 was a high point. Seeing the impact of all the amazing stuff that happens on play streets – friendships, connections, the massive range of play for children (from water fights to obstacle courses to reading in the street), all the playing out hours we’ve created… That was huge.
Also, thinking about what my daughter and I got from our play street and translating that into all the other children and adults on all the other streets over all the years! Over half the 107 streets have played out regularly so the impact is huge! All of that has happened because of what we did, and those streets will continue without us.
After accepting that I can’t be the one to grow North Tyneside’s play streets, because of other commitments and the scale of the task, I’ve been involved in ongoing discussions with various parts of North Tyneside Council to see if they’d be prepared to bring it in-house – and they are! I simply couldn’t have imagined a better outcome. The council has taken on the scheme enthusiastically, working to run it across council departments with public health at the heart.
It could all go wrong of course – there are risks with elections and funding. But my hope is that we see play streets happening in the areas of the borough that I couldn’t support, because now there is a paid officer time in place who can. They’re going to make sure that the kit is always free and held at leisure centres in neighbourhoods rather than centrally.
I’m really grateful for Playing Out’s support in this transition, helping me to work through possibilities, but also writing to the council to make the case for play streets in North Tyneside, on the back of what we achieved.
Try not to do it on your own, build your tribe, but absolutely do it! It’s been such a big part of my life. It’s been frustrating at times, but it’s been amazing. Use Playing Out’s support and any other support you can. Sharing with other activators at Playing Out’s Activator Days or online has also been a big help, to ask questions and feel part of something bigger. Use those networks. My sense is that there are more and more people around interested in children playing out, so find out where they are and make a connection.
I don’t intend to walk away from play streets completely. I hope to still be able to advise councils and other organisations across the north-east who want to support play streets, and we’ll continue playing out on our street. I’ll still be doing more research through my academic work too. And because of all this different work around children and play, I am now also a member of the Playing Out Board which means I can keep contributing there.
It’s all still extraordinarily important to me.
Windmill Hill City Farm
Philip Street
Bristol
BS3 4EA
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