Friday, 29 August 2008
Informal Open Spaces are defined by the National Playing Fields Association (N.P.F.A.) as areas for unsupervised outdoor children’s play.
This category consists of casual or informal playing space within housing estates, including safe shared space such as play streets. It includes outdoor equipped play areas for children of all ages, and play facilities that offer specific opportunities for outdoor play, such as BMX tracks.
Informal areas do not include sports pitches (Formal Open space), golf facilities, woodlands, parks, verges (Amenity areas), or water used for recreation except where it forms a play feature of an outdoor play area.
The National Playing Field Association has set a standard of 1.5 - 2 acres per 1000 population for Children’s Playing Space (Informal Open Space). The Informal Open Space 2 Acre Standard is further split into 0.5 – 0.75 acres for outdoor equipped play areas for children of all ages and 1.0 – 1.25 acres for casual or informal play space within housing areas.
In total 235 Informal Open Spaces were identified in the Borough, covering 528 acres of land. Publicly accessible informal open spaces in Doncaster are listed in the table available to download below.
More information on Informal Open Spaces and the results of the public consultation can be found in The Greenspace Strategy for Doncaster (see related documents in the left hand menu).
