‘I used to be a bit naughty’: Portsmouth defied funding cuts and saved its youth centres – here’s what happened

Two decades ago, the city's council chose to prioritise playgrounds and youth clubs to help its poorer families - and the benefits are plain to see

Read more: Last youth centre in one of England's most deprived coastal areas faces closure

Three schoolboys in black sweatshirts dart from a wooden fort across a sandpit, weaving and jostling past prams, scooters and bystanders, after a pink football. A pony-tailed girl launches herself on to a moving roundabout, while a young man wrestles a half-naked toddler into a pair of training pants before she scampers off back to the sandpit in the autumn sunshine.

This is Buckland adventure playground in Portsmouth, surrounded by trees and a mix of two-storey flats, terrace houses and tower blocks, mostly social housing built to replace the city's demolished slums.

Buckland adventure playground has now had three generations of children enjoying its facilities