It's just that we wish that the same official concern that is extended to our cars could be shown towards our children.
We aren't an organisation that grumbles and complains without making positive suggestions. The NPFA's 'Six Acre Standard', which sets out ways in which play and leisure space can be shared out between children and adults at a rate of six acres for every thousand people, is accepted as a benchmark by many enlightened local authorities. But it isn't the law - and we think it should be.
The Six Acre Standard suggests that four acres per thousand people should go to providing space for outdoor sport, and two acres for children's play.
It also suggests ways in which the children's play space can be divided up into areas with different sorts of play equipment - and, most crucially, how it can be laid out to make it easy to walk to without crossing busy roads.
In the end, it's up to individual local authorities to make planning decisions for their own areas, but the Six Acre Standard puts forward ways in which they can work out their own proposals for each new development.
It's not prohibitively expensive - it's forward thinking, not money, that we are after - but it makes an immense difference to the quality of the lives of parents and children.
Much of the work can be done without losing any of the housing plots. It doesn't take much room to provide a toddlers' playground.
People often say that, in Britain today, we care more about our cars than anything else. We at the NPFA don't think that's true - and we want planning regulations to show that we are right.
