Playground and Play Area Planning Questions Checklist

Walk the site at the times children are actually on it and note where they play, which is frequently not the part anybody has designated for the purpose.

The chosen spot usually has a reason behind it such as shelter, visibility or distance from adults, and that reason is worth understanding before it is built over.

Record what children do with what is already there: the bank they roll down, the wall they balance along, the tree they gather behind, the puddle they return to.

Landform and existing features often deliver more play than equipment does, and they are easy to destroy without noticing during groundworks.

Note the rough ages arriving together, since a toddler brought along with an older sibling is a completely different visit from a group of older children alone.

Mixed-age arrivals decide whether provision has to work for two groups at once and within sight of a single adult.

Record how long a typical visit lasts, and whether people come for a few minutes on the way past or settle in for a whole afternoon.

Short visits need little beyond the play itself; long visits bring seating, shade, food, bins and questions about toilets.

Note the times the site is busy, including after school, weekend mornings and the school holidays, and the times it stands completely empty.

Busy and empty periods together describe the demand far better than a headcount taken on one convenient afternoon.

Write down whether older children and teenagers use the space, when they use it and what they use it for, without treating that as a problem to be designed out.

Older children use play sites everywhere, and provision that ignores them tends to be damaged by them rather than left alone.

Decide which age ranges the group is planning for and write that down plainly, since the answer shapes every conversation with a specialist that follows.

Specialists ask this first, and a group that has not agreed it internally ends up letting a catalogue decide on its behalf.

Consider whether younger and older children need areas of their own, and ask what that would mean for what an adult can see from one position.

Separating age groups solves one problem and creates another for the adult trying to watch two children in different places.

Note where a small child would end up if they wandered away from the equipment, and what lies in that direction, recording it as an observation for the designer.

Whether an area needs enclosing, and how, is a question for qualified professionals and the local authority rather than a committee decision.

Ask older children what they would want that is not equipment at all, such as somewhere to sit together out of the way of younger ones.

Older children usually ask for space and a degree of privacy rather than apparatus, and that is often simpler to provide.

Put inclusive access and use to the local authority and a qualified professional as an open question, and record what they tell you rather than deciding it in the group.

What is needed for inclusive access and use is established by the relevant authority and qualified professionals, never chosen from a catalogue.

Record whether nurseries, schools or childminder groups bring children here, and ask how many arrive together when they do.

Organised groups arrive all at once and use a site differently from families, which affects everything from the entrance to the bins.

Note where accompanying adults currently stand or sit, and write down what they can and cannot see of the play from each of those positions.

The position adults have chosen for themselves is the clearest evidence available of where seating actually belongs on this particular site.

Ask which way seating would need to face for an adult to keep children in view, and treat the position as a question for the designer rather than a preference.

Seating installed facing a view rather than the play is the most common wasted item on a community play site.

Record where buggies, scooters and bicycles are left, and whether they end up blocking the entrance for everybody arriving behind them.

Everything wheeled that arrives has to be put down somewhere, and the entrance is where it lands when nowhere else is offered.

Consider an adult with children of different ages in different parts of the space, and note where they could stand to see both at once.

This single scenario tests a layout more effectively than any general discussion about sightlines.

Note whether adults have anywhere to get out of sun or rain, and where they currently retreat to when the weather turns.

Adults standing still get cold and wet long before children do, and that is what ends a visit.

Record whether adults tend to stay for the whole visit or drop children off and return later, since the two produce very different requirements.

A site used by unaccompanied children raises questions about visibility and reporting that a site full of waiting parents does not.

Write down how children arrive, whether on foot, by bicycle, by car or straight out of a school gate, and which direction most of them come from.

The dominant approach decides where an entrance belongs, and getting it wrong shows up quickly as a worn path across the grass beside it.

Record what lies immediately beyond every edge of the site: a road, a car park, water, a field, a garden, a footpath or a car park exit.

What separation is needed between play and a road, a car park or water is determined by qualified professionals and the local authority.

Note where the entrances are, which way any gate opens and whether somebody leaving walks straight out into moving traffic.

Entrance position and gate arrangement are simple to change on a drawing and very awkward to change once installed.

Mark the informal paths already worn across the grass, since those show where people will walk regardless of where a path is eventually laid.

Worn lines are free survey information, and designs that ignore them acquire a second set of worn lines beside the new path.

Record where vehicles stop when children are dropped off, who else is affected when several arrive at once, and whether anybody has complained about it.

Parking behaviour around play areas is predictable, observable now, and almost never included in a brief.

Consider where bicycles and scooters would be left, and note where they are currently abandoned in the absence of anywhere obvious.

Wheeled things left across an entrance are a nuisance for everybody and are solved by a place rather than by a sign.

Treat the choice of surfacing under and around equipment entirely as a question for a play specialist and the supplier, and record it in the brief as exactly that.

Surfacing beneath play equipment is specified by qualified professionals against the relevant requirements and is never settled by a committee.

Note how the existing ground behaves in wet weather and where it stays muddy longest, since that is information a specialist will ask for early.

Ground behaviour across a season is knowledge only somebody who visits the site regularly can supply.

Write the group wish list as activities such as climbing, swinging, spinning or hiding, rather than as named items, and let the specialist translate it.

A list of activities keeps the conversation open; a list of products closes it before anybody has looked at the site.

Record which existing items are used constantly and which are consistently ignored, since observed use beats any preference expressed in a meeting.

Ignored equipment on the current site is the clearest warning about what not to repeat.

Ask what each type of surfacing and equipment asks of whoever maintains it, and gather those answers before any preference within the group hardens.

Upkeep obligations vary enormously and are the part of the decision a volunteer group actually has to live with.

Treat any offer of donated or second-hand equipment with care, and ask a qualified professional what would need establishing about it before it is accepted.

Whether any item of play equipment may be installed on a site is established by qualified professionals, however the item was obtained.

Record where shade falls across the site during the middle of the day, and whether any of it reaches the part where younger children would play.

Existing shade is worth protecting during groundworks, and it is usually removed before anybody has valued it.

Note whether drinking water is available anywhere nearby and what people currently do about it on a hot afternoon.

Water provision raises supply and maintenance questions, so it belongs in the brief early or not at all.

Write down where the nearest toilets are, whether they are open at the times the site is busy, and who holds the key to them.

Toilet availability is the practical limit on how long families stay, and it is rarely mentioned in a play brief.

Record whether people eat here and where they sit to do it, because food and waste arrive together and stay together.

Eating happens wherever there is somewhere to sit, so seating position and bin position are one decision rather than two.

Decide who empties bins and how often, and note what the site actually looks like at the end of a busy weekend under the current arrangement.

Waste arrangements at a public site are agreed with the local authority or the responsible body rather than assumed by the group installing bins.

Note how exposed the site is to wind, since an exposed play area empties in cold weather no matter how good the equipment is.

Exposure varies sharply across a single site, and the sheltered corner is often already obvious from where people gather.

Establish in writing who owns the land and who would own the finished play area, because on community sites those are frequently not the same body.

Ownership, liability and insurance for a play area are matters for the landowner, the local authority and the group's own advisers.

Ask who would carry out routine checks, how often and to what regime, recording it as a question for qualified professionals rather than a committee choice.

The routine checking regime for a play area is set by qualified professionals against the relevant requirements, not by the group installing it.

Agree how a member of the public reports a broken item, and where that report lands once whoever is named on the sign is no longer involved.

Reporting routes attached to one willing individual fail the moment that person moves on, and a fault then sits unreported until somebody complains publicly.

Decide who holds authority to take an item out of use and how that is done in practice, before the situation arises for the first time.

The decision is far harder to make on a wet Saturday with a queue of children than it is in advance on paper.

Ask what happens when a part wears out or is damaged, whether replacements remain available and who the group would go back to.

Availability of replacement parts shapes how long the provision lasts, and it is a fair question to ask before choosing anything.

Decide which role holds the checking, repair and correspondence records, and how an incoming committee is handed them rather than left to reconstruct them.

Play area records are asked for at exactly the moment nobody can find them, which is usually after an incident or a change of committee.

Note which homes and windows face the proposed area, and how close the nearest of them is to where children would gather most.

Neighbour objections concentrate almost entirely on the closest few properties, and they are identifiable from the outset.

Ask the nearest neighbours what they already hear and see from the site, and record it before anything new is put to them.

A committee cannot settle what a neighbour raises; that goes to the local authority, and any assessment behind it to qualified professionals.

Consider whether the area would be used after dark, and record the group position on lighting before somebody asks for it at a public meeting.

Whether this area should be lit at all, and what any lighting scheme would involve, is for a qualified lighting professional and the local authority to settle.

Note whether the area is overlooked, and record that being visible from homes is often welcomed by users rather than resented.

Overlooking is usually discussed as a problem for neighbours when it is also the site's main source of passive supervision.

Write down where people already gather on the site in the evening, and whether the group intends to change that or simply to accommodate it.

Evening gathering happens on nearly every open site, and pretending otherwise produces provision that starts failing almost immediately.