by Rachel Alcock-Hodgson
I am an active travel professional who has worked for Sustrans since 2015. I now work for Sustrans Scotland as a grant funder in the Places for Everyone team and I am also completing an Urban Planning Masters at UWE. Places for Everyone is Sustrans’ permanent active travel infrastructure fund for Scotland. Supported by Transport Scotland, we provide funding and expertise to help deliver walking, wheeling and cycling improvements across the country.
We currently have more than 250 projects at various stages of development, ranging from multi-million pound transformations in Scotland’s cities to new walking routes between some of Scotland’s smallest communities.
Two axis of child-friendly planning. Adapted from the work of Marketta Kyttä by Tim Gill (2021)
In 2022, we published a toolkit for practitioners to support the design of walking, cycling and wheeling* specifically for children and young people. The toolkit contains an overview of the policy context in Scotland. It sets out two foundations and twelve dimensions for designing for children and young people.
The toolkit then presents several case studies of projects that speak to the foundations and dimensions. The foundations are: 1. Improved access for walking, wheeling, and cycling and 2. Create space to pause, stay, and play. The dimensions fall under these headings.
Dimensions for designing for children and young people, from Designing for Children & Young People.
This is something I am passionate about. As we say in the toolkit: “Since the 1970s, there has been a steady decline in the reported distances children are allowed to travel without parental supervision in the UK. We have also observed several instances where teenagers have been specifically excluded and discouraged from using public spaces.
At a time when private car use has been prioritised over the needs of people walking, wheeling and cycling for everyday journeys, this has only served to make neighbourhoods across the UK increasingly unsafe, inaccessible and unpleasant for play and socialising.
Planning and transport policies are now focused on reducing traffic volumes in many areas, including residential neighbourhoods, and providing spaces for young people to enjoy. This is in response to the climate emergency and the need to reduce emissions, to improve population health through encouraging greater mobility, and increasing community resilience as a response to the Covid pandemic.
Strategically, this is an important step in increasing children and young people’s independent mobility and will play an important part in improving their active travel opportunities.
Children and young people have a right to use public space. Those of us involved in planning, design, and sustainable travel can enable this right by providing quality environments that are safe to access, reflect children and young people’s needs and encourage them to thrive.”
In April 2023, Places for Everyone held its first in person event for partners since the pandemic: Designing with Children and Young People. It included sessions led by councils showcasing their projects and outlining what they have learned, as well as sessions going into engagement techniques to use as part of the design process. The sessions from the day can be viewed here and the live illustration of the event captured by Jenny Capon is shown above.
The event was a success. A wide range of partners attended. 54 delegates from 18 organisations including community groups and variety of local authority teams, from engineering to those specialising in behaviour change. 87% felt that their knowledge of designing with children and young people improved as a result of attending.
Overall, Jenny Capon’s illustration sums it up well. Designing with Children and Young people is complex and multi-faceted, just like the built environment itself, but we have a shared responsibility as planners and designers, and we need to work together to achieve transformative change.
*getting around with for example, a wheelchair, buggy or scooter.
Key Links:
Link to the event page: https://www.showcase-sustrans.org.uk/engage-inspire-learn/dcyp-event-page/?cn-reloaded=1
Link to the Designing for Children & Young People toolkit: https://www.showcase-sustrans.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Children-and-YP-tools-and-approach-v.18_DIGITAL.pdf
References:
Gill, Tim (2021) Urban Playground: How Child-Friendly Planning and Design can Save Cities. RIBA Publishing: London.