Equipped with a sand shovel and bucket, a sun hat and a drinking bottle, the Schneider family sets off. But instead of building the long-awaited sandcastle, there is a barrier and a sign at the favorite playground: Unfortunately temporarily not accessible. This has happened to many children and parents in Garching in the past few weeks. Several playgrounds were closed. The reason for this is the gravel – and the associated risk.
On many of the more than 40 playgrounds for which the city of Garching is responsible, roll gravel serves as so-called fall protection, i.e. as a substrate that surrounds the playground equipment and is intended to cushion any falls. However, this very popular material has one disadvantage: the gravel contains fine particles that have washed out in wind and weather on some playgrounds over the years and are now stuck together to form a hard layer under the pebbles. If the remaining gravel is pushed away at one point, for example to build a mountain somewhere else, it can become hard at this point – too hard for the specifications for a playground. They stipulate that with a fall height of up to two meters, there should be a layer of cushioning ground material at least 30 centimeters thick.
After all, playgrounds are places where children should let off steam, but they are by no means a legal vacuum. On the contrary. The German Institute for Standardization, known by the acronym DIN, has developed several standards since the 1970s to ensure that serious injuries do not occur on playgrounds. The DIN EN 1176 series of standards “Playground equipment and playground surfaces”, last revised from 2017 to 2020, and DIN 18034 “Playgrounds and open spaces for playing – Requirements for planning, construction and operation”, which the institute published in a new version at the end of 2020, are central. These extensive works regulate very precisely what builders and operators of playgrounds and open spaces for playing have to pay attention to.
Threatened claims for damages
This also applies to municipalities such as the city of Garching – Section 823 of the Civil Code (BGB) obliges them as operators to ensure the traffic safety of their playgrounds. Otherwise, in the worst case, there is a risk of claims for damages. In order to ensure traffic safety, the municipalities have to check their playgrounds regularly: a visual inspection is planned at least weekly, a so-called “operative inspection” every one to three months and once a year trained inspectors, for example from TÜV, inspect all equipment, surfaces and foundations .
In Garching, two employees from the building yard are out and about in the 40 playgrounds “almost every day” during the summer months, reports Klaus Zettl, head of the municipal building authority. If they discover a damaged piece of gaming equipment, it will be blocked immediately. “If devices are not safe for the children, we have to block them,” says Zettl. Depending on the extent of the necessary repairs, the building yard employees will then do it themselves or hire a specialist company. During a routine check in the spring, the employees noticed the problem with the gravel. The fall protection was too low, so the administration decided to replace it. As a result, seven playgrounds in Garching have been temporarily closed since the end of April. Instead of gravel, they now have special, clump-free quartz sand. Zettl hopes that all playgrounds can be released again by the beginning of July.
The head of the building authority regrets that the closures have increased due to the replacement and some damaged playground equipment. But he points to the responsibility of the municipality. “We want to do this right so that children and parents feel safe,” he says. Zettl defends that the attentive look of his building yard employees can also lead to toys or chairs that parents have deposited together on a playground being cleared away. After all, the city can be held jointly liable for everything that is on a municipal playground. “If something happens, then the parents are on the mat with us as the city of Garching.”