Children's playgrounds: ‘inadequacies and mediocrities inherited from the past’?

This Viewpoint considers why children's playground provision has changed so little in the UK over the last century despite radical changes in our understanding of children's geographies, considerable research into play space design and committed advocacy that has promoted children's more equitable access the city. It argues that the equipped playground has become increasingly embedded in to social, political and professional attitudes relating to the provision of public space for play. This history continues to have an enduring influence on the present-day management and maintenance of more than 26,000 children's playgrounds and the £86m spent on them each year.