Playground is a Laboured displeasure

8:18am Tuesday 8th April 2008

Things every playground should have: A wooden roundabout, preferably with a seemingly bottomless pit of mud underfoot; a rocket; swings; a slide; some empty cans of Merrydown cider; ancient and/or impenetrable graffiti etched into the metal frame of one of the above facilities, something along the lines of ECCY EATS PLATES or YANKS OUT OF VIETNAM.

Things every playground should not have: High-ranking New Labour ministers failing to not look like utter durrs by jumping on a swing in a play park in Brixton, as Ed Balls and Andy Burnham did last week in a bid to encourage parents to let their children off the leash a bit and indulge them in a few high-risk activities - presumably like allowing them to play unchaperoned in a playground where grown men in suits and ties hog the rope swings.

But in the spirit of Burnham and Balls' advice I took our two kids, Charlie and Alice, off to a playground last week, it being the Easter holidays and all that. (Actually, that's a barefaced lie; I took them to the swings more than once and the following happened before I read of New Labour's majority swing, but just let it ride in the interests of a seamless link between topical event and personal anecdote, eh?) Instead of our usual playground haunts, we decided to take a visit to Myrtle Park in Bingley for a change of scenery. When we arrived I did a double take. Although the fenced-in space the playground used to occupy was still there, someone had spirited away all the swings and slides.

Desperately trying to offset the looming tantrum by promising we could go and watch the old men playing bowls, I was rescued by a dog-walker who could evidently read my distress and pointed out that there was a bright, shiny new playground just a couple of hundred yards away.

We set off with a jaunty spring in our steps for this new construction, and verily it was something rather special. All tubular steel and ultra-modern angles, strange looking devices and hi-tech cushioned flooring. And therein lay the problem.

Because, while the playground actually looks pretty cool, I suspect that it was actually designed by people who either don't have children or never were the sort of children who went out to playgrounds, instead spending their free time tinkering with computer-aided design programmes and playing Bionicle on their own.

While I'm sure the playground was very expensive, it does seem to be a triumph of style over substance. Most of the necessary elements are there, but given such a modern twist as to be either unrecognisable or unusable.

For example, there are only two swings (plus two baby swings), but they're set at an angle to each other which means it's impossible to stand behind them and push two kids at once, which is vital when you've got two kids.

And the tubular slide looks impressive, but is only accessible via a rope pyramid that would be a bit daunting for Indiana Jones or Lara Croft, never mind the under-fives. There are a couple of Dr Seuss-style telephone things but we couldn't work out how to use them. All in all, something of a disappointment.

It might be good for potential photo opportunities with New Labour ministers, but my kids were quickly hankering for a wooden roundabout and a rocket ship.

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