CHILDREN'S PLAY AREA

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 85, 11 April 1933, Page 8

CHILDREN'S PLAY AREA

(To the Editor.) Sir,—TUe National Council of Women (Wellington' branch) begs the favour o£ space to place before you its views on the closing of the children's play area in Newtown. There is no play area' in Wellington which can be so ill-spared as this one, lying as it does in a congested residential area, where most of the seclions are small and many oil the homes overcrowded. • Children .must play; it is ar law of Nature and a necessity to their physical and mental well-being, and .where a suitable playground is not provided they will be forced on "to the streets, where \mtold moral and physical dangers await them. One docs not envy the consciences of those responsible if the City Council does not reconsider its decision in this matter. There is also the point of view of the many mothers who visit.the Public Hospital as out-patients and to whom the play area has been a godsend as a 1 safe place to leave their children while they receive their treatment. Children not being allowed as visitors in the hospital wards, many women will be prevented from visiting sick husbands or relatives for lack of this service. Surely Wellington is not yet in_ so bad a way that we must penalise the Nowtown mothers and- children to this extent.—l am, etc., ' S. L. SUCKLING, President National' Counci- of Wowen (Wellington branch), representing eighteen women's societies and five thousand women. ' - '