The government has spent more than 50,000 on a temporary website asking children what they want from playgrounds, which less than 10,000 people have used.

A written answer in Parliament from junior children's minister Kevin Brennan revealed just 9,286 people used the Build Your Playspace website, which was part of the government's consultation on the play strategy.

The site itself cost £50,000 plus VAT to build and will close on 18 August.

Brennan said: "It would be a total waste of money to build playgrounds that children won't use. This is a quick and effective way of getting children's own ideas about what is fun and to spread the word on how important play is to a child's development."

A spokeswoman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families added they expected more people to use the site between now and 18 August.

"We have got a huge emphasis on children's play at the moment and 9,000 users at the moment is quite a good number so far. It's probably going to rise even more than that," she said.