Canterbury’s Addresses Play Area Provision with the NLPG

Canterbury City Council has recently completed an award winning review of its Play Strategy for Canterbury, Whitstable and Herne Bay. The review was based on national guidelines for play area provision and made innovative use of the National Land and Property Gazetteer (NLPG) to calculate areas where this fell short. The review has already resulted in improvements to six play areas and prioritisation of areas in need of further provision which will be addressed through the planning process.

Canterbury City Council's GIS/LLPG Custodian Stella Loftus (in red coat) with Rosemary Selling, Outdoor Leisure Officer.The Play Strategy review was carried out under the Council’s existing Play Strategy and looked at three distinct types of play;

1. Fixed play facilities, such as equipped play areas, skate parks and ball courts
2. Organised or adult-led play supervised activities, such as play schemes, children’s clubs and youth clubs
3. Casual or child-led play activities that children and young people create and do on their own, without supervision. 

Play England national guidelines were used to determine the required proximity of provision along with household information provided by the NLPG and the location of existing Fixed Play Areas. The Council was able to determine the number and percentage of addresses both with and without access to fixed play areas for each council ward. 

The Council identified 5 Gaps in Provision where a ward had little or no fixed play facilities. These were put to the top of a priority list. The remainder of the play areas were assessed against five specific criteria and prioritised accordingly. To date six play areas have already been refurbished with exciting, challenging equipment appropriate to specific age ranges. The Gaps in Provision have been communicated to planners and developers to enable the Council to address the shortage.

Canterbury City Council Play Area Provision work received a Highly Commended citation in the recent national Exemplar Awards. The Exemplar Awards are organised by Intelligent Addressing Ltd and Local Government Information House. They recognise the outstanding achievements of local authorities, local partnerships, police forces and fire and rescue services, in the creation, maintenance and utilisation of the National Land & Property Gazetteer (NLPG). 

CONTACTS:

Gayle Gander, Head of Marketing, +44(0)207 747 3500, E-mail: ggander@intelligent-addressing.co.uk, www.intelligent-addressing.co.uk