Ban on ball games at playing fields
Monday 31st May 2010, 5:00PM BST.
Children are facing another summer without sport at Black Country playing fields after ball games were banned on health and safety grounds.
A “no ball games” sign is in place at the Broadway West playing fields in Walsall. Obesity experts have branded the move as “plain stupid” while parents are also bemused.
But Walsall Council says sports were banned on the land off Broadway West after routine soil examinations revealed significant contamination from dangerous metals.
But Tam Fry, chairman of the Child Growth Foundation and spokesman for the National Obesity Forum, said: “It’s absolutely unbelievable, particularly when you have people in Walsall and Sandwell bending over backwards to do something about child obesity.
“The area is a hotspot for obesity. Councils should be encouraging children to exercise, rather than discouraging it with these stupid signs.”
Parent David Jones, a 40-year-old builder said he could not stop laughing when he first noticed the sign. The father-of-two said: “April Fools has been and gone. They are a little late aren’t they? It’s daft. How can you have a playing field and not play any ball games?
“They’ve lost the plot, and confused us. My boy wants to play footie on it. We’re not sure if that’s illegal or not.”
Mother-of-two Helen Howard, a 30-year-old sales manager from Walsall, added: “How ridiculous can you get, the name playing field suggests you should be able to play on them.”
Ball games have been banned at the site since 2003 but it is feared the cost of decontaminating it and refurbishing a nearby pavilion could cost up to £1 million.
Nigel Ilsley, parks manager at Walsall Council, said: “A sign saying no ball games was put up a few years ago on Broadway West playing fields after land contamination was discovered at the site.”
UK News
Most Commented
Business Awards
Book a Business Awards table
Join our celebrations of the region's best in business on Thursday March 22 - book your table now
Lifestyle
Interactive Dining Out map
Hundreds of reviews by the Express & Star and Shropshire Star's teams to help you decide where to eat.
entertainment
All the film reviews
Before you plan a trip to the pictures, get our critics' verdicts on all the latest movie releases
OUR NEW APP
Get the new E&S app
Download the Express & Star’s new app to your iPad or iPhone to get one week of access to our digital newspapers absolutely FREE.
expressandstar.com
Popular sections
Useful links
Amazing isn’t it.A million quid to clean it up.Who let it get into that state? We are talking about Britain,not Afganistan.
Report abuse
Cuthbert, we’re also talking about the Black Country.
It’s called the “black” country for a reason…
And before anyone misunderstands that, the black comes from pollution in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Report abuse
all i can say is you voted em in, you pay the price.
Report abuse
How long before 2003 had it been contaminated? Lets face it if children have been playing on this site for years what is the point of stopping them now?
I think it is the fact that the parks department are afraid of getting sued by a parent of a child that finds out that a sliding tackle causes injuries.
WTF has got to happen in this country before people start standing up for COMMON SENSE!!!!
Report abuse
It seems like a spectacularly stupid and short sighted decision by the usual suspects. Incredible! I wish I could have become a health and safety officer when I was young and dumb, I would have been so good at it:)
Report abuse
And they kick off about kids hanging around on street corners in groups…. Give them a ball and some jumps for goal posts and there away, OPS! silly me I forgot your banned from playing ball game in the correct place…THE PARK.
How stupid can you get, dam well grow up walsall council or is that again health and silllyness
Report abuse
Well said Peter.
My generation grew up playing in the street, playing in the park (with balls and using t-shirts or jumpers for goalposts), had youth clubs in many areas, we had something to do all the time.
Thanks to such as this council, kids have nowehre to go and nothing to do – I can see them vandalising a car just to have some excitement!
Report abuse
This Country is just a joke sometimes…..
Report abuse
They’re not doing this to spoil it for the children..the land is contaminated. Who would be the first people to complain if a child was hospitalized because of it? This is a common sense approach and the people who contaminated the land should be forced to make sure it’s cleaned up as soon as possible as well as arrange alternative sites.
Report abuse
Contaminated with what? And should the area not be totally sealed off if its contaminated rather than allowing people on the land?
Perhaps the council should decontaminate the land and bill those responsible. Unless it was them……?
Report abuse
Pity our street isn’t ‘contaminated’. We have non-stop noise and vandalism centered around ball games, and we are powerless to do anything in case we heart the little ‘darling’s’ feelings..
Report abuse
Connor Davies, wrong again!!!!
The Black Country got its name from the colour of the soil, the coal beneath the ground caused the soil to be black, hence the name The Black Country, see below.
By the late 19th century, this area had become one of the most intensely industrialized in the nation. The South Staffordshire coal mines, the coal coking operations, and the iron foundries and steel mills that used the local coal to fire its furnaces, produced a level of air pollution that had few equals anywhere in the world.
However, historians suggest that it is more likely that the name existed even before the Industrial Revolution; outcroppings of black coal scarred the surface of the local heath, and the presence of coal so near the surface rendered the local soil very black.
Jim of Bearwood.
Report abuse
Jim of bearwood you are wrong conner davis is right.
The black country got it’s name from queen victoria who whilst travelling through the area (said to be tipton) and seeing all the smoke and pollution in the air ordered the curtains on the train to be shut as she did not want to see “this black country”.
It has nothing to do with the colour of the soil.The historians you refer to need educating as they are only “sugesting” and since the coal seem’s stem long into the “new” staffordshire area, that is not in the black country adds no weight to historians “sugestions”.
Report abuse
Sorry it’s back.
Report abuse
Sorry Carl there are historical documents prior to Queen Victoria that refer to the area as the Black Country.
Maybe she read those documents or was told about the area before travelling through it.
Report abuse
Sorry Martin.
This seem’s to be an arguable topic, but encyclopieda’a state the fact that is was queen vici that named this part of the world,and black country folk belive that to be true adding to that, the expression of The black country is a relatively new one and no reference can be found before 1840.
Report abuse