There are times when I wonder what sort of a country I am living in. Common sense goes out of the window and is replaced by an excessive need to regulate and protect.
Watford Council has decided to ban parents from entering the playground their child is playing in unless they have been CRB checked. Instead they must leave them in the care of play rangers. I kid you not. Play rangers? This sounds like another non-job to add to a growing list of non-jobs created under Labour.
Although it is amazing no-one spoke out against this nonsense when it was proposed, I am not amazed Watford Council thought it may be necessary to adopt this approach. This is a result of the last twelve years of a Labour government who finds it necessary to control and micro-manage every aspect of our lives. In his leader's speech in Manchester, David Cameron spoke of how we need to stop treating children as adults and adults as children. Roll on that day, but this culture seems embedded in officialdom in this country and it will not disappear overnight.
Hat Tip: Dizzy
UPDATE: It seems as this story is not true. Click HERE to find out the real story.
3 comments:
You are not actually reporting this very accurately. One wonders for what reason Watford Tories would choose to misrepresent the Lib Demposition on this given the Tory smear campaign (and legal case) that made the headlines a few months ago.
As Watford Council made clear
“Contrary to reports in the media, Watford Borough Council has not banned parents from public parks and playgrounds in the town!
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.
Parents and carers are, of course, welcome to bring their children safely into the sites and settle them in.
If parents aren’t happy leaving their children – there are lots of other options open to them. In the town, there are 4 community centres, 5 children’s centres, over 40 areas of park and playgrounds, as well as a museum, two libraries… These are also free to attend and open to everyone.”
Far from banning parents from parks or play areas, they have asked parents who drop their children off at a supervised playscheme not to hang around afterwards. I used to work for a Tory council on a chidlren’s playscheme and the policy was identical to this, but of course we (Lib Dems) didn’t try to make political capital from it because that would have been playing politics over an issue of child protection.
That's why I posted an update and a link to the mayor's blog, Nich.
To be fair Andrew, you did. Other Tory bloggers (Thunderdragon and Iain Dale spring to mind) didn't.
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