A mother, who is tired of taking her toddler to playgrounds riddled with broken equipment and rusting parts, has embarked on a campaign for safer facilities.
Backed by hundreds of other parents, Rabea Albilt is calling for a legal structure that ensures playgrounds are regularly inspected and maintained for children’s safety.
Public playgrounds fall under the responsibility of local councils which, however, have no obligation to follow national minimum standards.
After researching the matter and meeting with the regulatory authority – the Malta Competition and Consumer Affairs Authority (MCCAA) – Ms Albilt has now written to Parliamentary Secretary for Local Government Silvio Parnis for a solution.
In her letter she writes that “Malta’s playgrounds are being neglected and hardly maintained” and that countless of them are in a “disastrous state”.
While a good national standard document exists, she writes, “unfortunately it’s a voluntary national standard and its content seems of little interest to the responsible institutions.
“Clearly, the inspection and maintenance of playgrounds need to be regulated by law and properly enforced.
Playgrounds are being neglected and hardly maintained
“I appeal to the Local Government Division to advocate the improvement and safety of Malta’s playgrounds… and to bring forward the request to transpose this [national standard] into national law”.
Ms Albilt started campaigning for the cause a few months ago when she set up the Facebook group ‘Better Playgrounds for Malta’ to gather information, raise awareness and connect with other parents.
“It was all spontaneous. When I had my son, I started going to playgrounds. When you become a parent you see things you didn’t see before. After the fifth playground, I thought: is this bad luck?
“I posted a comment on a Facebook group for mothers and soon realised I was not alone. So I decided to do something.
“This is the first time ever that I’m doing something like this. Maybe because now that I have a child it’s different and things matter more,” says the 39-year-old from Germany, who has been travelling to Malta regularly for over a decade and moved here almost two years ago.
Parents commenting on her Facebook group pointed to several examples of unsafe, unclean playgrounds with broken and damaged equipment, rusty, sharp or pointed metal parts, missing baby swing belts, broken or unlevelled rubber flooring, missing or damaged fencing and much more.
She started researching the matter and met up with representatives from the MCCAA who told her about the national standards that were being revised.
“The document is a starting point – but if made national law we’d have a much better situation in playgrounds,” she says.
Questions sent to Parliamentary Secretary Silvio Parnis, by Times of Malta, have remained unanswered.
Standards being updated – but still voluntary
The current minimum safety requirements for playgrounds are being revised to adhere to updated EU standards and will be issued for public consultation next year, according to the Malta Competition and Consumer Affairs Authority.
“National standards are published and made available by the MCCAA, and such standards are normally published for voluntary adoption by third parties,” the authority said.
The current standards ‘Public Playgrounds: Requirements for Public Playgrounds Safety and their Management’ were introduced in 2011 after a seven-year-old boy suffered serious injuries when he fell headfirst onto a pile of rocks in November 2010.
He had been frightened by a dog during a Sunday family outing at Chadwick Lakes.
His father launched an appeal for the setting up of a group of experts to regularly check playgrounds and recreational areas to ensure they were safe for children.