Complete a risk assessment

When you apply to close a road, you will need to include a risk assessment with your application.

A risk assessment is a way to think through what might go wrong and what you can reasonably do to prevent anyone getting hurt.

The best way to make your play street safe and avoid any problems is to plan well.

What you need to include in your assessment

Things to consider:

• hazards, such as broken glass, waste on the ground
• damage to the road that could cause harm – report a damaged road to us by using our form
• if the road has a steep hill that children might race down and hurt themselves.

You don’t need to think about everything that might possibly happen – just those that you could reasonably expect to happen and that (if not thought about) would result in someone or something getting hurt.

You will need then explain suggested solutions to mitigate these problems in your assessment.

Download a template

You can download our simple template to help you create your risk assessment. It has been filled with some examples to help you understand what we are looking for in an assessment.

Download our risk assessment template (Page 5 of Useful Documents) – (Word, 6.4 MB) 

Insurance

We recommend you have insurance for your play street, but you do not have to.

Having public liability insurance may give you peace of mind, but it is good planning, not insurance that stops things going wrong.

You should make it very clear that parents remain responsible for their children.