A NEW report says that lots of you are spending your summer holidays playing inside, and that’s not just because the weather has been a bit rubbish!

The Playday report, by charities Play England and Save the Children, has found that only 27.4% of children today say they regularly play outside in their local street. That’s a huge drop compared to the 80.4% of adults aged 55-64 who say that they spent lots of time playing outside when they were children.

The researchers found that kids who spent time playing outside were more likely to be feeling positive emotions. Almost a third of children surveyed for the report said that they want to spend more time playing outside in their local area. However, there are just not as many places for kids to play as there used to be.

The amount of money available for councils to spend on local play parks has fallen by £350 million in the last 11 years, and many play parks aren’t being maintained properly.

Since 2013, the number of kids who say they’ve been told to stop playing outside by their parents or carers has increased, with most saying that they’ve been told to stop making a noise outside or stop playing ball games. Researchers discovered that more parents reported being worried about bothering their neighbours than those surveyed ten years ago.

On 12 August, it’s International Youth Day, an official United Nations event dedicated to raising awareness of the issues that today’s children and young people face. Less than 3% of the world’s lawmakers are under 30, so perhaps if more young people were in charge, kids would have more places to play!

What do you think?