Caroline Allen, London Assembly Green Party Candidate, talks Green Spaces to the Hackney Green Party Campaigns Team
More green spaces, more use of green spaces
With a recent study showing that fewer than ten per cent of children play in wild places; down from 50 per cent a generation ago. Protecting our green spaces and making streets safer for children is more important than ever.
Caroline Allen, Green Party London Assembly candidate for North East London said ‘unbelievably children are more at risk from falling out of bed than they are in nature- three times as many children are taken to hospital each year after falling out of bed, as from falling out of trees. But understandably parents in London don’t feel that their children are safe outside. However there are very clear dangers of not getting outside enough: increasing childhood obesity and depression among children and young people, are just two examples’
In ‘Last Child in the Woods’, published in 2005, Richard Louv coined the phrase ‘Nature Deficit Disorder’ which “describes the human costs of alienation from nature, among them: diminished use of the senses, attention difficulties, and higher rates of physical and emotional illnesses”
London Greens recognises the link between healthy children and a healthy environment and our manifesto is filled with pledges to improve both.
The roaming radius for kids has declined by 90 per cent in one generation. The reasons for this include increased road traffic, a decline in wild spaces and a breakdown in community life making parents fearful of ‘strangers’. We need policies to reverse these trends.
The Green Party election commitments include making our streets safer by tackling the dominance of motor vehicles, protecting our precious green space and tackling income and health inequality.
