'We wouldn't feel happy letting our kids out of sight'

JONATHAN FOSTER

Children were nowhere to be seen at the children's playground on Fretson Road yesterday, turning the climbing frames into abstract sculpture on a grassy knoll empty of summer holiday games.

In the heart of the Manor estate in Sheffield, the longest school holiday represents for many parents the climax of year-long anxiety for their children's safety. Fretson Road playground is sited away from traffic and within a parent's watchful look. But, in the neighbouring circles of council houses, caution drew a tight cordon.

Three mothers watching their children said the playground was too far away. One said: "The kids can play in one another's gardens, or in the house. But we wouldn't feel happy letting them out of the sight of at least one of us."

Traffic, especially stolen cars, is believed to be a peril on the Manor; so are imagined weirdos and perverts. But the greatest and most plausible danger to children is posed by other, older children. Across the estate, vandals have destroyed a new playground, wrecking the equipment and leaving behind the detritus of drug abuse.

Many children will not leave the estate throughout the holidays because their families, often without a father, cannot afford as much as a day trip to Scarborough. If they wander they are at large in a world of juvenile distraction, drugs and potential delinquency.

At Pipworth primary school, glaziers were yesterday replacing 40 panes smashed by vandals. In February, a classroom was destroyed by arson kindled, teachers believe, by the boredom of a school holiday.

Of Pipworth's 280 pupils, more than 75 per cent are from households living on benefit. The behaviour, health, or learning difficulties of one in three pupils has earned them a place on the special needs register.

Andrea Bevington, the school's deputy head, said: "About one in five will go away during the summer, the rest wander the estate, perhaps going to the club with a parent, or to their gran's house ... The summer for them is such a monotonous period short of stimulation that it takes two months to get some of them back into a learning frame of mind."

A play scheme is run at a secondary school on the estate, but some parents have kept their younger children away for fear of trouble from older youths.