Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps he has taken to support local authorities in maintaining children’s play areas.

Responsibility for funding, managing and maintaining urban parks and playgrounds lies mainly with local authorities. We have supported local authorities through the Local Government Finance Settlement, which is our most significant step yet to make English local government more sustainable. The government is making good on long overdue promises to fundamentally update the way we fund local authorities. We are delivering fairer funding, targeting money where it is needed most through the first multi-year Settlement in a decade.

In addition to this, we are supporting 66 local authorities through the £18 million Playgrounds Fund, a targeted programme to improve children’s access to safe, inclusive, high quality local play spaces in communities where it has fallen furthest behind. This will support local authorities to buy new or refurbish up to 200 playgrounds across England over the next two years, prioritising areas with high child deprivation and poor access to safe, local play space.