Children in England 'have less freedom to go out to play'

14 August 2015

Parents in England give children less freedom to play outside and travel to and from school by themselves than other countries in Europe, a study has found.

A survey by the University of Westminster’s Policy Institute compared how much freedom children have to go out and play in their local neighbourhoods in 16 countries.

Researchers put Finland at the top, as the country where parents gave children the most freedom to move around on their own, with the majority of eight-year-olds allowed to cross main roads, travel home from school and go out after dark alone.

The majority of Finnish children can:

England was placed seventh in the survey, behind Denmark, Japan, Sweden, Norway and Germany.

The report, the latest in a series looking at the issue, makes a number of recommendations to increase children’s freedom. These include stricter road safety measures, reducing dependency on cars and adopting daylight saving timing to allow children longer daylight hours and cut road accidents.

Eighteen thousand seven to 15-year-olds and their parents were asked between 2010-2012 about what they were able to do in their local area without being supervised.

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