The three month period of consultation with nearly 6,000 children and young people revealed that some children and young people in Dudley have far less opportunity for free play than others. We found that children and young people with profound and severe disabilities, those who are poor or live in deprived neighbourhoods and those with poor provision or no provision at all miss out the most.
The Dudley Play Strategy has now been approved by the Council and the Children and Young People's Partnership and is expected to receive nearly £700,000 of lottery funding in June 2007.
The Dudley Children and Young People’s Partnership has identified fourteen projects that will target those children and young people in greatest need. These will include 70 children with profound physical and learning disabilities, 200 children with severe physical and learning disabilities and 300 with special educational needs. Children and young people in the Brierley Hill, Netherton, Lye and Wollescote areas will be able to use a new multi use games area and children in North Dudley will have a new skate park. Other children will benefit from a mobile play wall and borough wide play ranger programme. Children in Wordsley will have a new play feature as part of a new Centre of Excellence for Children’s Play in their local park and extended school campus.
We have estimated that up to 10,000 children and young people will benefit from the projects in our portfolio between 2007 and 2010. We have calculated that up to 1 million play hours will be created through the children’s play projects in the portfolio.
In April 2007 the strategy was presented to MPs at the House of Commons in London and was commended as a shinning example of local authority strategy development. The strategy is now being promoted by the Big Lottery Fund and Play England nationally.
