Children’s playgrounds are closing at an alarming rate across the country, threatening the fight against obesity, it is revealed today.

Hundreds of playgrounds have already been shut since 2014, with cash-strapped local authorities expected to close hundreds more over the next two years.

And the situation could be even worse, a new report has found, with dozens of councils not revealing details of their plans.

The picture of widespread playground closures is in stark contrast to repeated Government promises to tackle the childhood obesity crisis caused by lack of exercise and poor diet, the report’s authors warn.

Research by the Association of Play Industries (API) found that 112 playgrounds across 28 local authority areas were shut between 2014 and 2015, with a further 102 scrapped across 37 councils the following financial year.

Furthermore 30 local authorities reported that they were planning to close another 80 playgrounds in the 2016-2017 financial year just finished, with another 19 councils planning to shut 103 playgrounds over the next 12 months.

The closures amount to a nearly 3 per cent cut in the estimated total of fewer than 16,000 local authority playgrounds remaining across England, though researchers believe this is an underestimate since many other cases of playgrounds being shut are unlikely to have been reported.