Had a very nice chat with two of our local PCSOs about kids playing football in the road.

Their view (and I hope I’m not misrepresenting anyone, I think this is about right) is that, although it isn’t technically illegal to play football in the road, they prefer to ask the kids not to simply due to the likelihood of property being damaged sooner or later.

Instead, the police would suggest younger children play in gardens and older children go down to the park.