He is now 4 and half,and now cannot go in and play, he watches his friends play everyday now, outside of the facilty, and i have to tell him, he no longer allowed in, beacuse he is not five yet, and i am not allowed to accompany him, as was always the case…..

He attends a school next to the facility,…. so he is going to get a constant reminder of this until he is five in march, when he will be “officially allowed in”

I can tell you that when I went to a Watford primary school, this certainly wasn’t the case. But then, that was while the Tories were in power. God only knows what might have Changed under Labour…

>And it’s simply not good enough to say that Iain was blogging in haste. He’s had ample chance to correct his story, but is happy to let the false version stand.I think that’s poor.

When I checked, he had drew a distinction between the two playgrounds and the other 40 – but I’ll agree that wrong accounts should be corrected.

I suppose that it could be that children in Watford Primary schools are allowed to come and go as they please, but I’d suggest we would have heard by now.

>What LDV did was put out the Council statement, which flatly contradicts the stories put about by Metro etc. For all the acres of comment since then, I’ve not heard anyone say the Council’s statement is incorrect.

But there is no indication that the Council Statement can be regarded as “the facts of the case”, any more than can the Metro article.

And *I’ve* said that it is incorrect.

1 – The Council (from LDV):

“The press have inaccurately reported what Harwoods and Harebreaks are; they are not open public facilites. They never have been. They are closed, fully supervised facilities.

They are no different to other fully supervised facilities, like schools, playgroups or nurseries – where adults are not allowed to stay.”

2 – The Mayor (from LDV):

“This is about our adventure playgrounds, which are closed-off, fenced-in, fully supervised facilities for over 5s. Parents drop off their kids and leave them in our care – no different to playgroups or schools where adults are also not allowed to stay. We have a responsibility to those parents to safeguard their kids, and provide the best possible environment for them.”

3 – The form parents are required to sign up to to attend Harwoods, including a checkbox confirming their acceptance that their children can come and go as they please:

“The Adventure Playground is an ‘Open Access’ Facility. This means that children can come and go as they please, without restriction. If you are unsure of the meaning of ‘Open Access’ please discuss it with a member of staff. Please indicate if you understand and accept the ‘Open Access’ principle.”

http://www.watford.gov.uk/ccm/cms-service/download/asset/?asset_id=15363020

So, which is it? Are these closed, fully supervised, facilities, like a school – or are 5-10 year olds allowed to wander in and out as they please?

The Mayor and the Council are spinning a line that contradicts their own previous and current policy, and some people are trying to call it “the facts of the case”. That is not so.

There’s more to this than meets the eye, regardless of any inaccurate reporting on the part of papers or blogs.

There are also the various points that the Council have not been able (or have been unwilling) to explain

- What sort of quality of professional management is it when they had allowed a coach and horses to be driven through their own “rules”? Or are they making it sound more stringent than it was to justify the change?

- They mention “incidents”, without explanation. What incidents? Serious? Trivial? Do they justify the actions taken? I’m not inclined to believe it until I see the details.

There’s something fishy here, and not a little diversionary arsecovering.

And it’s simply not good enough to say that Iain was blogging in haste. He’s had ample chance to correct his story, but is happy to let the false version stand.I think that’s poor.

As for the Mayor’s statement, I suspect she ‘mis-spoke’ in her first article. Fair enough to have a go at her for that – but it doesn’t alter the facts of the case.

>2) what LDV did was present the facts of the story, which had been notably lacking from Metro, Henry Porter and Iain Dale et al, who spun it that Watford LDs were seeking to ban parents from all public playgrounds -

But it didn’t – LDV essentially presented the line put forward by the Mayor of Watford, which has just as many consistencies as that put forward by Iain (who has the excuse that he was reporting rapidly), by Lib Con, or by anyone else.

The Mayor changed her story a couple of times, and ended up claiming in one aspect the exact opposite of the statement made on her own Council’s booking form. Not convincing, and certainly not “the facts of the case”.

Imo the only one with a reasonable overall summary on this is Heresy Corner.

@Gregory

>I hate this topic, however, the idea of vetting 11 millions, or whatever, is generally viewed by real police agencies as perverse.

I agree with that, and I’ve written extensively elsewhere. The perversity is already proven, but it will take massive damage to our caring professions before anyone notices.

ISTM that “protecting the children” is going to become the same sort of generic excuse used by management to justify whatever they want to justify, as currently happens with “Health and Safety” when used by non-H&S professionals as an excuse (ask the H&S pros what they think about that).

I hate this topic, however, the idea of vetting 11 millions, or whatever, is generally viewed by real police agencies as perverse.

The crisis began with the FBI asking very simply for the Brit govt. to desist from placing pedophiles the FBI had targeted or detected, in British schools.

the FBI feared the day, children are found in a mass grave and the suspect was protected by a client state. THat wouldn’t look good for the FBI, it would make them apprear complicit.

Vetting millions is not required, commonsense was required, a small number of people, who if they were banned, would have greatly reduced etc.

“the truly Orwellian Independent Safeguarding Authority. I think an organisation that wants at least 11 million people to prove that they are not paedophiles is a much greater danger to liberty (and indeed trust between people) than a spat over access to playgroups.”

Particularly as convicted criminals compete for jobs on exactly the same basis as everybody else, and they are getting them.

Smoke & mirrors

Gregory

The prerequsite always was that a parent/carer should always be around, if your child was under five, so to suggest, that parents just started hanging around for no reason is not true……

I will provide a link to the ofsted report conducted in 2007 that sums up, what this adventure playground is all about, everything else is just spin, to get oneself out of hot water

http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/oxcare_reports/display/(id)/30504

1) Sara Bedford, a LD blogger who’s a parent who’s used the Watford facility, explains the background here: http://tiny.cc/hPW6f

2) what LDV did was present the facts of the story, which had been notably lacking from Metro, Henry Porter and Iain Dale et al, who spun it that Watford LDs were seeking to ban parents from all public playgrounds – categorically not the case, even though both have allowed these falsehoods to stand without apology. Personally, I do not agree with Dorothy’s original comments – but they don’t alter the facts of the story.

I have to say, I’m slightly surprised at your stance on this issue, Charlotte.

It seems to me the Council is doing entirely the right thing in ensuring parents and children have a choice of facilities: public playgrounds for unsupervised play where parents are welcome; and supervised facilities where children are free to play safely but also free from the parental gaze. That choice strikes me as a Good, Liberal Thing to encourage.

I don’t think all play should be supervised by parents any more than I think all play should be supervised by the council/state.