April 2024

Earlier this month, Make Space for Girls hosted an insightful training session for the team at KMDC.

A registered charity, Make Space for Girls is dedicated to campaigning for inclusive design of parks, outdoor spaces and other facilities to meet the needs of all genders. Their extensive research demonstrates that parks have typically not been designed with girls and young women in mind, and as a result these are often unwelcoming to such groups. For example, typical planning policies tend to promote a traditional MUGA or skatepark model for teenage play, which, as demonstrated through Make Space for Girls’ citizen science projects, are not well-used by women and girls. Research in Sweden also found that parks were typically being dominated by boys at a ratio of 80:20. This is a huge issue, as women and girls are missing out on the positive impacts for mental and physical well-being of accessing outdoor space which are so widely recognised.

Their research also points to urban design and planning policies advocating facilities that boys and young men would most like to see in outdoor spaces. For example, skate parks and MUGAs scored low on the list for both boys and girls when Yorkshire Sport consulted a group of 456 teenagers on what would help them to be more active in a park.

A particularly important topic that we addressed through the training session was the importance of placing women and young girls are placed at the heart of the planning, design evolution and consultation process. Teenage girls are often absent from community engagement processes, as well as younger people in general, a trend frequently noticed by KMDC at public consultation events. We discussed ways to target these harder-to-reach groups, to ensure that their voices are heard.

In terms of how inclusive design of these spaces is achieved, Make Space for Girls shared their best practice guidance which recommended design features such as social seating, circular walks around the perimeter of parks, banks of swings for teenage girls, and breaking down spaces into much smaller areas to prevent one group dominating it. KMDC are looking forward to applying these learnings to our schemes going forward, to play our role in promoting greater inclusivity across new developments.

You can read more about the fantastic work of Make Space for Girls here: https://www.makespaceforgirls.co.uk/