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Karen Buck's piece "The very serious business of child's play" (15 August, page 16) struck a chord. As a community development worker based between two large housing association estates, with a good sprinkling of private housing thrown in, I have watched our "affordable" play scheme provide activities run by a charitable voluntary organisation for £3 a day throughout the summer – including two trips off-site each week for five to 16-year-olds.

The exhausted playleaders, most of whom are full-time teachers, have dealt with all sorts of dramas over the summer weeks. They now have to gather themselves to start the round of bids for funding for next summer's project – in their spare time, of course.

Speak to the leaders who spent the best part of last year scraping together the funding and the general feeling is one of utter frustration. Most funders will only fund new projects, not ongoing ones (Connexions, especially, springs to mind) so leaders feel they constantly have to reinvent the wheel.

Why is it that we can't see the obvious and make life a lot easier for those people on existing playschemes struggling to exist?