IT is a far cry from the image of a traditional play-park with swings and roundabouts: a course of graffiti-covered walls and metal railings where kids learn to jump from building to building like trainee superheroes.
Campaigners say purpose-built parkour sites are a big part of the future when it comes to health and fitness for Scottish children. Parkour - or free-running - sees participants jumping off walls, leaping over railings, and bounding from roof to roof.
Health experts are now extolling the virtues of facilities like the parkour site in Coatbridge, North Lanarkshire as an example of the type of play parks which are needed in Scotland to tackle obesity and help the next generation be more active.
The importance of play is being increasingly recognised. The introduction of a “measure” to assess how much children participate in activity is now even being considered by the Scottish Government’s play strategy group.
Peter Mckee, director of Parkour Scotland, said they hoped to help develop further similar facilities across Scotland following the opening of the site in Coatbridge at the end of summer 2013.
Parkour, which was developed in France from military obstacle course training, uses running, climbing, swinging and rolling to move across an environment in the quickest possible way.
“The park is crazy busy – there are some schools close by and as soon as that school bell rings, you get a flood of kids on the way home from school – they will stop, train and then go home,” Mckee said.
“Then the high schools come out and it is another big rush of kids. It is full all the time and it is right beside the swing park and the skate park, so curiosity brings a lot of people in.”
Mckee said parkour particularly appealed to boys, who were interested in gymnastics but don’t participate as they see it as a “girl’s sport”.
He added: “We don't just want to stop at one (park), we want to have them everywhere.
“We can give designs and help people get funding, as we have been through that process so we want to try and help other areas get the same thing.”
The parkour facility in Coatbridge, which is the biggest free-to-use facility of its kind in the UK, was recently given an award by the Nancy Ovens Trust, which aims to promote play opportunities across Scotland.
Fraser Falconer, chair of the Nancy Ovens Trust, said the type of projects which had received awards over the years include skate and rollerblading parks and natural woodlands. He said it was about play facilities trying to “do something different”.
He said: “For a while play got overshadowed by risk – but risk is about making decisions and there is a school of thought that if children don't learn to or to not take a risk, if they don't make those calculations, how are they going to learn?
“We need to get children active again from an early age.”
Falconer, who is also chair of the Scottish Government’s play strategy implementation group, said it was now looking at how to “measure” play activities, to assess how much children are participating in.
Another recipient of the Nancy Ovens Trust award this year is the Selkirk Playpark Project, which opened last year after being set up by four mums. It features a giant sandpit and natural play equipment such as wooden climbing frames.
Alison Cullen, chair of the Selkirk Playpark Project, said: “Selkirk is quite a reasonable-sized town, but we did not have a great play park for years.
“My son is 11 and he lives there. People moan about teenagers hanging around the streets. Now most of our young people go to the park, which is brilliant – they congregate, play football and chat.”
A spokesman for the Scottish Government said: “We want Scotland to be the best place to grow up, to be a nation which values play as a life-enhancing daily experience for all our children and young people; in the homes, nurseries, schools and communities.
“That is why we launched a national Play Strategy and Action Plan in 2013 and in 2015-16 alone the Scottish Government is investing over £3.5 million in play.”
He added that research was also being undertaken in partnership with the University of Strathclyde to research the impact of play activities on overall physical activity levels.
“This research has just begun and we look forward to viewing the results,” he added.
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