Water Play in Urban Open Spaces in Sheffield: Children’s Experiences, Parental and Professional Understanding and Controls.

The purpose of this study is to explore what makes water features in different urban open spaces attractive to children and what opportunities or constraints influence children’s ability to experience such water features. This thesis takes a qualitative triangulation approach to investigate children’s perceptions and experiences of water and how children's experience of these spaces are perceived, facilitated or controlled by parents and professionals, and this study’s findings are based on three urban open spaces in Sheffield with a different characteristics: water features in Sheffield city centre, particularly the Peace Gardens, Millhouses Park and Endcliffe Park.