A REDLAND mum has launched an app designed to encourage children and families to explore more of the city’s parks and green spaces.
The Bristol Playgrounds app allows users to discover, visit, and log parks across Bristol, while building their own virtual playground that grows the more places they explore.
The idea came from Emily Smithson, a maths teacher turned app developer, after she began visiting parks across the city with her three daughters during the pandemic lockdown, She began blogging about their adventures, sharing reviews of each park they went to, and soon other parents began recommending new places for her family to visit.
Inspired by the Gromit Trails, Emily decided to turn the idea into an interactive app that could help other families find new parks and make outdoor adventures more exciting. One of her daughters, who was 10 at the time, even helped design some of the characters featured in the app.
Emily, whose daughters Jess, Sophie and Martha are now 17, 14 and 11, has updated and relaunched the app in time for the summer holidays. She said: “It’s to encourage other people to get out there and visit other parts of the city because there’s so much to offer and it’s all free – so that’s amazing.”
“I think, especially since Covid, our kids have been so constrained by it, they’ve had such a different upbringing, and this is just a really great way to get them outside and exploring and adventuring.”
The app features information on 59 parks mainly across Bristol and South Gloucestershire, helping families find the perfect place to visit. Users can filter parks by facilities such as cafés, toilets, duck ponds and playgrounds, as well as find directions and details about each location.
To make exploring feel like a game, children can earn rewards and collect items for their own virtual playground. Each park visit unlocks a new piece of equipment, while special challenges offer extra rewards – including an early bird award for visiting before 9am and a prize for completing all the adventure playgrounds.
Emily also created printable versions of the activities, recognising the irony of encouraging children to spend less time on screens while using an app to do it.
“I feel like parents can use the app to find playgrounds and then there’s a printout so the kids can have a physical thing to rate the playgrounds,” she said. “There are also a few activities they can do.”
Having visited most of the parks in the city, Emily knows a thing or two about Bristol’s best playgrounds. Her daughters are big fans of larger parks such as Blaise Castle Estate and Hengrove Park, but Emily prefers something a bit more low-key.
“Those huge parks are amazing, but as a parent I sometimes find them a bit overwhelming,” she said. “My personal favourite is probably Page Park in Staple Hill – it’s just got absolutely everything.”
By Ailsa Marshall
