Parliament moves to protect schoolyards

BarcelonaParliament takes a step forward to protect school playgrounds. The Catalan chamber has unanimously agreed on Wednesday to promote an urgent legal change that establishes that the sound of school playgrounds cannot be considered noise pollution. The measure aims to protect schools from the proliferation of complaints from neighbours about excessive noise, complaints that have even led some schools in Barcelona to temporarily close their playgrounds.

This is the case of the Salesians Rocafort school, in the Sant Antoni neighbourhood of the Catalan capital. Complaints from neighbours forced Barcelona City Council to seal off two sports courts at this centre in July. In December they were able to reopen one. In this case, they were two courts shared by the school and a nearby gym. The closure of the playgrounds meant that many students were unable to do physical education for a while or had to do it outside, in addition to inconveniences such as having to bring all the school's students together in a single playground.

The case of the Salesians Rocafort gave rise to other complaints. Other schools, such as Salesians Sepúlveda, Vedruna de Gracia, Jesuitas Kostka, la Pía de San Antonio, Torrent d'en Melis and Auró received similar notifications. Faced with what they considered a situation of "defenselessness", they asked the Parliament to take action. And this Wednesday the Catalan chamber has taken the first step. The plenary session has unanimously approved the urgent processing of a bill promoted by Junts, ERC, the PP, the Comuns and the CUP which calls for the amendment of Law 16/2002 on protection against noise pollution so that noise limits do not apply to activities carried out in the courtyards of 7-year-old schools.

"The set of sounds emanating from courtyards intended for teaching, physical, recreational or leisure activities in schools between 7:00 and 21:00 will not be considered noise pollution because they are considered to be acoustic emissions typical of the normal development of life in these spaces." An express period of amendments is now open, which ends on Friday, with the aim that the plenary session can definitively approve the law in March.

One of the parties that have already said that they will present amendments will be the PSC, which, despite sharing the spirit of the proposal, wants to introduce changes, for example, in the timetables established by the text. In any case, while waiting to know what the final content is, everything points to the fact that the norm will be approved without problems in the plenary session of the second week of March. This will allow the town councils to develop their own measures to protect the schools and prevent new cases such as that of the Salesians of Rocafort.

The complaints of the neighbours

The lack of specificity in the text is, in fact, one of the complaints made by the residents. "As it is written, the proposal is so permissive that football matches or parties could be organised on Sundays at 7 in the morning," lamented the Neighbourhood Network Against Noise (Savicos) in a statement on Monday. Despite admitting that school playgrounds "are essential spaces for the well-being and development of children and young people" and that "sports and recreational activities are necessary and beneficial", these residents complain that sometimes there is "an abusive use of these spaces outside of school hours".

"Although the noise generated by children during the school day may be understandable, the extension of activities beyond this time represents a serious problem for many people," says the statement, which demands that the modification of the law clearly define the permitted activities.