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And I'm in Scotland where 20mph is now mandatory in residential streets, where every new planning or infrastructure needs a play sufficiency assessment, and where every child has the right to play in nature on a daily basis. Wales also has this, and more robustly than Scotland. NI will have it when a parliament can actually be convened to pass the legislation needed.
Practically this needs more work - so many drivers and many in our communities have forgotten the value of play for children.
And traffic is basically the no.1 barrier.
Scotland where 20mph is now mandatory in residential streets
Since when?
Middle class wallies with nothing better to do.
Roads are for transport. There isn’t a housing estate in the land more than a few mins cycle from a public park/green space/play area etc.
Since when?
I should correct myself - it's being rolled out in residential streets. Some areas / authorities ahead of others.
Be 20 mph in built up areas from mid September in Wales. Just not looking forward to being slowed down by cars when I'm out on the fast bike.
Roads are for transport.
Motorways are for transport.
There isn’t a housing estate in the land more than a few mins cycle from a public park/green space/play area etc
Because every kid wants to play on a shit set of swings rather than with their friends outside their homes. Happy days
. There isn’t a housing estate in the land more than a few mins cycle from a public park/green space/play area etc.
Except if you're that kid then what are the routes like to get there? Can you cross that busy road? Can you cycle with all those cars speeding?
What if the park is shit? Why should kids only have parks as play places - yet adults and cars have more spaces and rights?
Why play 5 mins away when you can play near home and the parents or neighbours who know and support you when you need it?
Roads are for transport
Can be for transport. It seems storing private vehicles, at public expense, comes before kids health & wellbeing, neighbours, and exclusive to those who don't own cars.
. There isn’t a housing estate in the land more than a few mins cycle from a public park/green space/play area etc.
Where's folk going to play Kerby?
I keep thinking about starting to play badminton in our road; we used to when we were kids all the time.
I'd put money on the people who would complain being the same people who whinge about how kids don't play outside any more...
Children still play out in our small cul de sac. Chalking, playing games, riding bikes and scooters and just plain having fun, often in all weathers. Letting them play outside is socially good and keeps them away from too much screen time.
This needs to be normal again. The air quality is bad, obesity in our country is bad and some drivers need to learn they are speeding too much and need to learn that they are not the most important thing on the road.
Playing out is free, it just takes one responsible parent or known adult to be on duty and keep an eye on the kiddies.
Roads are for transport
They weren't when I was a kid. Where did you learn to ride a bike?
@bunnyhop kids played out in our street for years to0 - they are mostly too old now and new kids have yet to move in. But the biggest thing stopping them was dozens of cars everywhere. The house across the road (one of whose kids was one of the players not to long ago) now has five cars, sometimes six. On a two car driveway.
Not wanting to sound like a broken record it’s really worth engaging with councillors/local active travel group on this stuff - ultimately there needs to be a counterbalance to the noisy minority who feel their right to drive everywhere by whatever route they feel like trumps everyone else’s right to clean air, ability to walk/cycle and for children to play out safely.
Unfortunately said minority includes the SoS for Drivers Transport.
During lockdown our kids played in the street and it was cracking. No chance now with too much traffic about, and that’s in a small rural village.
Cars have been prioritised over people for far too long.
Roads are for transport.
Roads may well be. But streets aren’t roads.
Agree with the above sentiments about over-entitled bell-ends making such a fuss that they ruin things for the majority.
one of my favourite things about living in Copenhagen is the priority of people over cars. Many residential streets have benches in them or at the side of the street, kids set up basketball hoops or other play activities and people just enjoy the space as it should be. In summer neighbours sit on benches in the middle of the street and eat and play together. The outrage this would cause in the UK... nevermind everything would just get vandalised, always amuses me https://goo.gl/maps/wS7qYFhQee7xVUuW6
Cars have been prioritised over people for far too long
This! This! This! Often see cars parked half on pavements meaning prams, wheelchairs, etc. have to go into the road to get past.
Love a good bit of woonerf. Yeah, we need more of it for everyone's benefit apart from the vocal minority who need to 'make progress' in residential areas.
Often see cars parked half on pavements meaning prams, wheelchairs, etc. have to go into the road to get past.
Near me there used to be a very shiny white Audi that parked outside his house blocking the entire pavement, it was between an estate and a school so a load of people knocked on his door asking him not to do it as all the kids and parents with prams had to go onto the road to get by. He pretty much told them to %£& off as he didn't want his car getting scratched and didn't care about anybody else.
A few weeks later I walked by and somebody (not me) had walked up onto the bonnet, over the roof and down the back in line with the pavement. Funny enough he started parking around the corner and then moved away shortly afterwards!
Middle class wallies with nothing better to do.
Roads are for transport. There isn’t a housing estate in the land more than a few mins cycle from a public park/green space/play area etc.
No offence but this makes you sound like a right knobber.
I don't have kids, but I like to see them play.
I was fortunate (despite growing up in Thurrock) that I lived in a cul-de-sac along with 8-10 similar aged kids. Only one house had more than one car and everyone had a drive. The same road now is blocked full of cars.
The UK has a strange relationship with cars and it is one reason I wouldn't want to move back.
Why is it OK to drive at 30mph through a housing estate? It's one of the reasons, ironically, some parents choose to drive their kids to school as they see the sensible option of walking to be too dangerous.
Many places on the continent have 30kmh zones in residential areas and outside of Kindergarten and schools. Who can object to that other than a complete knobber?
I found that video quite moving. There should be more schemes doing the same.
Ultimately cars are shit.
Something I heard the other day is that cars are to the Brits as guns are to the Yanks.
Something I heard the other day is that cars are to the Brits as guns are to the Yanks.
Absolutely agree with this. After the Wimbledon incident last week I heard quite a lot of people saying "isn't it time we actually did something about cars" and there was exactly the same response as after a shooting in the US of "how dare you use this tragic event to push your agenda you monster".
Bloody loved Kerby! I almost didn't buy our current house because the road outside didn't have curbs so where the hell is my non-existent [at the time] son going to play kerby?!
Weird that everyone has equated my comment about "transport" with "cars". I think this definitely shows how ingrained they are with UK culture, even to people on here!
I actually hate cars/driving & think we need a massive, fundamental re-think of UK transport policy. I would happily ban on-street parking on the majority of roads in favour of communal parking facilities located (fairly) nearby. Make every road that can be one-way and have the other lane as a proper segregated cycle/e-scooter lane. Congestion charging in every town. Proper subsidised or ideally free bus service in every town that serves all residential areas. We need a proper, joined-up public transport & active travel plan and sadly some wistful thinking back to the halcyon days of playing kerby in the street just doesn’t have a place in that, we are too densely populated now. Besides, it’s not necessary in European countries with more active & less obese kids than we have, and it wouldn’t solve that problem anyway. it’s an attitude change that’s required.
Weird that everyone has equated my comment about “transport” with “cars”. I think this definitely shows how ingrained they are with UK culture, even to people on here!
To be fair, your original post was somewhat ambiguous.
A bit of light trolling perhaps, but a serious point 😀
Ok. but streets aren't only for transport regardless of what form that transport takes as I'm sure you appreciate.
we are too densely populated now
You're right, trying to emulate some rural backwater like Copenhagen is just a hiding to nothing. 🙄
I've visited Copenhagen a few times, and spent lots of time cycling all round it. We should indeed be aspiring to something like that! The roads are given over to bicycles, buses & cars, making it possible to get around without needing a car. I've never seen children playing in the street there, so not really sure what your point is 🤷♂️
I’ve never seen children playing in the street there, so not really sure what your point is 🤷♂️
I have.
Also in Göteborg, Malmö, Oslo and Stockholm (and lots of smaller cities and towns around the patch)
Just like i used to in the 70's and 80's in the UK, and kids used to outside my place in the 90's. They stopped once they connected the road i lived on to the outer ring road.
Thankfully the road i lived on as a kid is a cul de sac, and there is a railway line and a very aggressively possessive farmer stopping it being turned into a through road, or an extension to the estate.
we are too densely populated now
You’re right, trying to emulate some rural backwater like Copenhagen is just a hiding to nothing.
Indeed, it is all about what we prioritise and fight to prioritise.
Sadly, politicians make decisions based on popularity, not sustainability and 'The Right Thing'.
we are too densely populated now
my house is on a b-road, 30mph limit, deeply rural, hamlet population about 10, not a thoroughfare at all, but there is no way it’s safe for my children to play in the street. Lockdown was a joy. A recent fallen tree accompanied by road closed signs was another joy (apart from the nice old oak).
OPs spot on. I miss kerby. (Not that we have kerbs here either)
There’s a different but related problem happening in these rural areas. I grew up suburban playing kerby in the 80s/90s like most seem to remember above, but now live rural. my older Neighbor remembers his children playing in the field over the road. Roaming the woods down the road. Now the road here is too dangerous to cross. The field is heavily fenced off and intensively farmed. The woods have been bought by the big house down the road and fenced off.
we are too densely populated now
The Netherlands is the most densely populated country in Europe (double that of the UK) and yet somehow does this better than anywhere else in the world. Even just outside of city centres, you can walk along virtually traffic free residential roads and find play parks at the end of almost every street. It has absolutely nothing to do with population density.
we are too densely populated now
We really are not.
Even just outside of city centres, you can walk along virtually traffic free residential roads and find play parks at the end of almost every street.
But if you put one foot on the bike path you're getting mown down like the shankspony scum that you are.
Zilog, some roads are definitely for transport but I'd say in central Edinburgh where I live, most streets are just a way to access your house on it. Those houses are never more than a couple of hundred yards from a major road where the actual transport happens. There's no real reason why people need to keep their cars outside their house, or drive down a residential street. Similarly, there's no real reason for a bus to go down a residential street, so in most cases they don't.
You could shut all the residential street to traffic except bikes, which don't pose a risk to kids playing in the street, and create cycle superhighways on the main roads and the net result would be exactly what you're asking for, but with kids having a nice time. Even I think that's a good thing, and I hate kids.
Middle class wallies with nothing better to do.
Doubt it. Us middle class wallies have all got massive back gardens and au pairs to escort our kids between after school clubs and organised sports activities, and two cars to drive around in. But it's okay because one of them is a brand new hybrid SUV.
Roads are for transport. There isn’t a housing estate in the land more than a few mins cycle from a public park/green space/play area etc.
I appeared to have stumbled into a Daily Mail/STW crossover ..
we are too densely populated now.
We are too densely populated to accommodate so many vehicles in our urban areas.
It can be done. We used to live here and for a modern estate, it was magical. Kids play in the street all the time, everyone knew everyone else, massive green spaces to play between the houses and a country park on our doorstep. Totally changed my mind about how new builds can be done.
to those who claim we are too crowded and reevaluating priorities on roads cannot be done just look at this
