Children in Bradford to get more opportunities to play outdoors as part of UK-wide nature programme
30 September 2026
Better Place is one of 25 communities across the UK joining the Royal Society of Arts’ Playful Green Planet programme.
Children and families in Bradford are set to benefit from more opportunities to play outdoors and connect with nature as part of a major UK-wide programme putting nature-rich play at the heart of everyday childhood.
Bettter Place has been selected as one of 25 organisations across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to take part in Playful Green Planet, a Royal Society of Arts programme funded by the National Lottery Community Fund.
The project is part of the biggest expansion yet of Playful Green Planet, which supports communities to make outdoor play and time in nature a bigger part of everyday childhood.
The programme has already reached more than 8,000 children and created more than 26,000 hours of nature-based play and learning. The latest expansion brings new projects into communities across all four UK nations.
Adele Adams, Better Place Project Manager said:
With children spending 10 times longer on screens than playing outside, the need for accessible and exciting opportunities for outdoor play has never been greater. Over the last ten years, Better Place has improved 25 acres of green space and delivered more than 1,200 outdoor play sessions for families with young children in Bradford. But there is still so much more we can do. Being part of Playful Green Planet gives us an exciting opportunity to build on what we have already achieved and explore how more children and families in Bradford can enjoy outdoor play and connect with nature close to where they live.
The idea behind Playful Green Planet is simple: children have not stopped wanting to climb, build, explore, invent games and use their imaginations, but opportunities to do that freely outdoors are not always easy to find.
Each of the 25 communities will develop an approach shaped by its own place and the children and families who live there – from school grounds and parks to housing estates, gardens and neighbourhood green spaces.
Tom Kenyon, Director of Social Impact at the Royal Society of Arts, said:
Children still want to climb things, build things, explore, invent games and disappear into their imaginations. What has changed is how easy it is for them to do that. The answer is to create more places and opportunities that make children want to be outside in the first place. That is what these 25 communities are doing. Some are transforming spaces children already use. Some are opening up entirely new possibilities for play. Others are taking ideas that have worked somewhere else and making them their own.
The Royal Society of Arts will support participating organisations to develop approaches that work for their communities, while helping them share successful ideas and learning across the wider Playful Green Planet network.
The expansion forms part of a wider ambition to make nature-rich play available to many more children close to where they live.
The Royal Society of Arts is working alongside organisations including the National Trust, Nature Towns and Cities, the Land Trust and the Eden Project as part of a broader ambition to enable one million more children to play in nature-rich spaces on their doorsteps.
Tom Kenyon added:
Where a child grows up should not determine whether they get to play in nature. What I love about these projects is that they start with the places people actually live – the school ground, the park, the patch of green space around the corner – and ask what could be different. This is creativity for the common good in its most practical form: people looking at something familiar, imagining something better, and making it happen. Give children somewhere good to play and they’ll take it from there.
About Better Place
Better Place have been working their magic across the Better Start Bradford area of Bowling and Barkerend, Bradford Moor and Little Horton and have invested over £2million so far to improve the environment and outdoor play spaces for families with 0-4s since 2016.
Better Place identifies and oversees improvements to local parks and outdoor spaces with the aim of providing a healthier and happier environment for expectant parents, babies, young children and families. The project also finds ways to reduce exposure to harmful traffic fumes for pregnant women and small children.
The Better Place project is a Better Start Bradford project that is being delivered in collaboration with Bradford Council, Bradford Trident, Groundwork UK, Public Health, voluntary and community sector groups and local people.
About Playful Green Planet
Playful Green Planet is a Royal Society of Arts programme, funded by the National Lottery Community Fund, supporting people and organisations creating more opportunities for children to play in nature across the UK.
It was inspired by the Fellow-led Forest of Imagination project in Bath and has since developed into a national network of Stewards leading projects in their communities and Champions supporting and connecting their work.
The wider network has so far engaged more than 8,000 children and created more than 26,000 hours of nature-based play and learning.
About The National Lottery Community Fund
National Lottery players raise over £32 million a week for good causes across the UK. Thanks to them, The National Lottery Community Fund distributes over £600 million a year through over 13,000 grants. The funder plans to invest over £4 billion of funding into communities by 2030. It supports projects across the whole of the UK to turn their truly life-changing ideas into reality.
The Climate Action Fund is a long-term commitment to support communities across the UK to act on climate change and involve more people in positive environmental action.
To find out more visit The National Lottery Community Fund website.
The new cohort
The 25 organisations are spread across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Northern Ireland: 174 Trust; Groundwork Northern Ireland; Kids Together; National Trust Northern Ireland.
Scotland: Playful Gardens, Dundee, led by Scrapantics; The Back Garden and Hamiltonhill Claypits, Glasgow; We Are Wonder, Glasgow.
Wales and South West England: Groundwork Wales and Pillgwenlly Primary School, Newport; Amanah Cymru, Cardiff; Baggator, Bristol; Forest of Imagination, Bath.
Yorkshire and the Humber: Better Place Bradford; Rewilding Youth, Hull; Hyde Park Source, Leeds.
North West England and the Midlands: Easy Come, Easy Grow, Manchester; All Saints Primary School, Liverpool; Scouse Flowerhouse, Liverpool; The Conservation Volunteers – Merseyside; Electric Daisy, Derby.
North East England: Tees Community Forest, Stockton-on-Tees; Tees Community Forest, Redcar; Karbon Homes, Byker, Newcastle.
South of England: Trelya, Penzance; The Parks Foundation, Bournemouth; Southampton Collective.
About Better Start Bradford
Better Start Bradford was a 10-year programme (2015-2025) funded by The National Lottery Community Fund to help children in Bowling and Barkerend, Bradford Moor and Little Horton get the best start in life. They provided more than 22 projects for pregnant women and families with children aged under four. The projects will help to improve children’s social and emotional development, communication and language development and nutrition. www.betterstartbradford.org.uk
Better Start Bradford was part of the ten-year (2015-2025), £215 million A Better Start programme (ABS) funded by The National Lottery Community Fund, the largest funder of community activity in the UK. There were five ABS partnerships based in Blackpool, Bradford, Lambeth, Nottingham and Southend, all supporting families to give their babies and very young children the best possible start in life. Working with local parents, the partnerships have developed and tested ways to improve children’s diet and nutrition, social and emotional development, and speech, language and communication. The work of the ABS programme is grounded in scientific evidence and research.
Although the delivery phase of Better Start Bradford has ended, its learning and evidence base will continue through Better Start – Better Futures: from Conception through Reception Evidence (CoRE) Partnership, which brings Bradford community members and system leaders together to embed best practice and create sustainable early years improvements.
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The Better Place project has transformed parks and green spaces for the benefit of families with play equipment and facilities specifically designed for 0-3s, right across the Better Start Bradford area.
A celebration of the Better Place project and the impact it has had on parks and greenspaces across the Better Start Bradford area, as well as all the families now using them