Children Protest to Save Adventure Playgrounds

By Heather Rawling — Leicester National Union of Teachers (personal capacity)

My heart sang when I saw and heard them. Children and young people, marching and singing and chanting and banging drums. They were making their grand entrance onto the political stage and would not be ignored. Protesting about Leicester City Council’s plans to drastically cut the budgets of their adventure playgrounds to the point where they will not be able to function.

Ironically, Prince Charles has launched a campaign to get more young people interested in volunteering in ‘a bid to tackle unemployment and gang violence’. Yet on the very same day that this initiative was announced, young volunteers were protesting to save their projects outside Leicester Town Hall. Children from the Woodgate Adventure playground told me that these playgrounds keep violence down and life without them would be boring with nothing to live for. Some 14 year old volunteers from Goldhill adventure playground described how they involve disabled children in their playground. Their pride in their work was obvious and moving.

Some of these adventure playgrounds have been around for forty years. They work with the most vulnerable and disadvantaged children in the city. Children from Woodgate described the playgrounds as ‘family’. As one banner said, they are not just playgrounds. Some are open from 9 am until 6.30 pm during term time working with children excluded from school and children that have to hide from their families because of abuse and violence.

Yet Leicester City council are cutting their budgets by £300,000. Children did not cause this economic crisis and should not be made to pay for it.

Councillors serious about representing the people of Leicester would not be making cuts but mobilizing people of all ages in a struggle to obtain more funding. We need people to stand as Trade Union and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) candidates to defend ordinary people, mobilize the fightback and refuse to pass on these hated cuts.