Play streets

What is a play street?

Play streets are regular temporary road closures which allow families and children to play freely and safely on their street in their own neighbourhood. The aim is to bring people together to foster a closer, more meaningful sense of community.

Why play streets?

According to the WA Government (Planning Commission), road reserves make up almost 25% of our residential areas, so it makes sense that roads have multifunctional uses in our neighbourhoods (Road Planning policy document, 1998, updated 2022, p. 4).

When we consider ALL residents - especially children - we can get to their level on the street and see what they see on an everyday basis (try kneeling and looking around to see what you see, for example).

Where people may be concerned that playing on the street is unsafe, we’ve found that play streets increase perceptions of safety because:

• neighbours get to know each other,

• children learn to be more street aware (of cars, visitors, activities on the street), and

• parents and carers take a proactive view of supporting their children and their friends when playing out.

Setting up a play street

We were involved in the creation of Rae Street Play Street, a local council funded play street initiative, to develop the play street concept right here in Perth WA. We saw what was being achieved on the streets of Bristol UK through the Playing Out team and thought we could give it a try here in Perth.

Step 1 - gather support. We talked with our kids about closing the street to play to see if they were keen. We got a resounding “yes”, so we had a couple drinks and nibbles nights to talk this through with parents. With their support, we approached the local council with the idea, and to find out what was needed to close the street. We needed 85% agreement from the residents to proceed, which meant door knocking, meeting neighbours and telling the play street story (and our kids come along too).

Step 2 - align with your council. We battled the “red tape” to set up a traffic management plan which laid out the appropriate street signage and traffic management measures needed to safely close the street. The council was really supportive and gave us lots of advice and a bit of funding to get the plan approved. The police needed to be informed and approve the street closure (similar to a street or block party).

Step 3 - schedule the play. Once the legal work was completed, we scheduled our play street sessions (once a month for a Sunday afternoon). We set up some introductory sessions to encourage the kids to take over the street. While kids don’t need permission to play as such, they needed to warm into the street space and build confidence to play out on the street. For some this was a new concept!

[Side note - we realised that the contracted traffic management was quite expensive for each monthly street closure. So to make the council funds go a bit further a group of parents undertook the traffic management training over a weekend. We ended up with 8 qualified traffic managers as a result and set up a schedule of parents to take on the traffic management.]

Step 4 - encourage input and feedback. Over time, street play became a combination of free play and some planned elements, such as bicycle skills, bicycle repairs, cubby building, water play, live music and shared food. We would invite feedback from children and parents and take suggestions and ideas into the next play street.

Step 5 - record the experience. We made sure to capture the children’s experiences and report back to the local council. We wanted to turn our experience into ongoing policy about playing out. We presented at local community events, community development conferences, council meetings and shared our play street across social media. We even ended up on ABC radio!

Eventually the council developed an Open Streets Policy to support play streets and street activities.

There was a nation-wide initiative to promote play streets through Play Australia’s 1000 Play Streets campaign. You can download their 1000 Play Streets toolkit to get you started.

Recently, the Town Team Movement announced funding for their Streets Alive! initiative. So, what a perfect time to jump on your play streets dreams and turn them into a reality!