Of course there are already some excellent provisions for children and young people across London. The Mayor's New London Plan is evident in its provision for children and young people across a range of policy areas.
Why 'independent mobility'?
About this report
PARTICIPATION
DESIGN
MANAGEMENT
POLICY
EXEMPLAR APPROACH
An exemplary child-friendly city, neighbourhood, development or street would function well in all four of these areas to ensure a holistic provision of infrastructure and services. The extensive and multi-faceted nature of this research means there are multiple target groups, all of whom can play a key role in making London child-friendly.
TOWARDS A CHILD-FRIENDLY CITY 3 Dinah Bornat
Mayor's Design Advocate and
Young People and The City' Sounding Board Chair
Allowing them to do so provides intergenerational benefits; spaces that are safe for children tend to be safe for everyone. One thing we should learn from this work is that there is no single answer – it is and should be an evolving dialogue.
UNDERSTANDING INDEPENDENT MOBILITY 4
A child-friendly city has a good balance between the ability of children and young people to move around independently and the things they need to do. You only have a child-friendly environment when children and young people can easily and safely move from place to place.
GENDER MOBILITY AND
PLAY
CRIME AND ANTI-SOCIAL
BEHAVIOURHEALTH
A RIGHTS-BASED APPROACH
CHILD DEVELOPMENT
THIRD PLACES
PROXIMITY
SUPERVISION
Key Themes
In these cases, the built environment simultaneously becomes safer, full of affordable prices and navigable for children and young people of all ages and abilities. The distance between home, school, transport and play and social spaces is important in determining the mobility permission granted to children and young people.
ASSESSING INDEPENDENT MOBILITY 5
What to Measure
Mobility Indicator Checklist
Do children and young people feel welcome and able to play in public and communal spaces? Do children and young people have a high level of input into decision-making about the built environment?
Measurement Methods – How to Measure
Identifying and developing policy that enables the transformation of the built environment to address the independent mobility of children and young people is a key part of creating a child-friendly city. This development should increase opportunities for play and informal recreation to enable independent mobility for children and young people.
Principle Policy Approach
Practice
The development of relevant planning policies and Local Plans should be informed and framed by gathering relevant locally based knowledge from children and young people. Engagement with children and young people should be tailored accordingly and undertaken according to their circumstances and level (see chapter 'Participation').
Case Study
London Borough of Hackney
How many students still drive to school, what are the reasons and how to fix it. The effectiveness of timed road closures during the pilot period was then compared with baseline data. In 2019, LB Hackney published a detailed School Streets Toolkit which was distributed to all districts across the country.
A range of other child-friendly initiatives from LB Hackney can be found in the appendix document.
Neighbourhood Design
Working with children towards a child-friendly city
The processes of planning and design are key points where children and young people can get involved in the changes in their neighbourhood. Efforts should be made to understand how children and young people use and feel about space from the start of the project and to help inform the design brief. A best practice approach to engaging children and young people in place-based projects was developed in 2013 by the Children and Young People's Commissioner for Scotland.
Children's and young people's participation is a fundamental aspect of an inclusive and child-friendly city.
Principle
Participative Approach
A focus on understanding the 'lived experience' of children and young people through research is crucial to gaining a rich understanding of place. This mapping process should involve and be led by children and young people who live in or use the area. Engagement should use creative methods to ensure children and young people are stimulated, including online and digitally.
The Hart Engagement Scale shows how we can measure the engagement of children and young people, describing the key characteristics of authentic engagement.
Rokesly Junior School, LB Haringey
Room for Art, Poplar, LB Tower Hamlets
Hackney Quest and Build Up Hackney
Co-creating site rules and learning how to use power tools encouraged and created responsibility through risk. Allowing children and young people to come into contact with the wider community, culminating in sowing and sowing days at the end of October. Children engage in creative planning of how they would like to see the city transformed.
Young people identifying places of interest and developing designs at Build Up Hackney (Source: Build Up).
DESIGN AND TYPOLOGY 8
Designing Streets and Public Spaces
Creating more child-friendly spaces is based on the expectation that children should be visible when playing or moving around in public space. The 'Parklet' initiative is one example and the Parc Rives de Seine precedent on page 119 illustrates this indicator. Ease of Crossing – Removing physical barriers to crossing roads is critical for pedestrians and active travel.
Ensuring routes flow well allows you to prioritize pedestrian mobility and reduces obstacles between different spaces.
Designing Housing and Residential Developments
In the context of London government, there are several policies that address housing provision and the needs of children and young people. The new Housing Design SPG, Good Quality Homes for All Londoners (2020), will provide further detailed guidance to help implement the housing and design policies of the new London Plan, helping in ensuring good growth to create successful, inclusive and sustainable countries. As part of the development of the new SPG, a draft guide was reviewed by the Mayor's Design Advocate Dinah Bornat to ensure that the principles of independent mobility of children and young people were included in the guide for each typology.
The immediate area outside the home is one that children and young people will use every day, so it is vital to ensure that it is of a high quality and safe.
Design and Typology Approach
Streets should be designed to reduce the speed of drivers in residential areas where possible. Developments need to be considered in their wider context – for example proximity to nearby schools, transport links and civic/social use. Outdoor spaces in residential areas should be pedestrian-friendly (and car-free where possible).
Networks and connections between private and shared spaces should be secure and car-free where possible.
Mini Hollands, LB Waltham Forest
The Mini-Holland scheme at Orford Road in Waltham Forest, showing priority for pedestrians and cyclists. Based on baseline data from 2013, Kings College London conducted a study analyzing the effects of the Mini-Holland programme. Impact of an active travel intervention with a focus on cycling in a suburban context: one-year findings from an evaluation of ongoing projects in London's mini-Dutch programme.
Kings Crescent Estate, LB Hackney
The design team created a temporary garden on the site, while in use, from the start of the redevelopment, creating a new public space and a place for engagement from a very early stage. There was a review from a child-friendly city and expert post of the Phase 1 game, which informed the design of Phase 2. Management plans and agreed uses should be considered in the early stages of a project and should be informed by an understanding of the location and awareness of any long-term capital funding required to govern and maintain the proposal.
This will ensure that they are inclusive places that all Londoners can enjoy, and that any rules or restrictions are only those that are essential to the safe management of the space.
Management Approach
Children and young people must be given the time and permission to play on the street, in public spaces and where necessary in shared and communal areas in residential areas. Management plans should be developed at an early stage in residential and mixed-use developments, particularly those with mixed ownership, to ensure that all children and young people have access to the same public spaces for exercise, play and socialising. Key fobs providing access between private and communal areas should be avoided as they can prevent children and young people from moving freely around the developments.
A shared living agreement that protects the rights of children and young people to play and socialize freely should be drawn up for tenants and home owners in residential developments at the earliest stage.
Bourne Estate, LB Camden
95 New living room and first floor windows create sightlines across courtyards, balancing the public realm against pedestrians (Source: Matthew Lloyd Architects). Relocating the Multi-Use Games Area (MUGA) to the heart of the estate, putting children and young people's recreation at the centre. The new buildings have safe shared access, visually permeable balconies and balustrades with clear sight lines.
The public space is activated with entrances and doors facing each other, connected and visible to the shared spaces.
Alexandra and Ainsworth Estate, LB Camden
Over time, the landscape and open spaces of the property were used by residents due to problems with lack of maintenance and deterioration. There was no long-term management or maintenance plan and a number of landscape features had been damaged and play equipment removed. In addition to landscape and play improvements, the scheme substantially improved accessibility, permeability and legibility within the park and restored the key.
A 10-year management and maintenance plan has also been prepared to ensure the permanent preservation of the landscape.
THE NEXT STEPS FOR LONDON 10
A call to action
Also, more technical infrastructure elements such as highway and street features need to be better understood in terms of how they perform to enable or hinder the independent mobility of children and young people. Specific guidelines on the size, type and quality of specific infrastructure for children and young people. Research into alternative methods for measuring and providing space for children and young people, beyond the current square meter approach to spatial planning.
The Good Growth by Design report 'Making London Child-Friendly – Designing Places and Streets for Children and Young People' will form an important part of the evidence base for the development of the new SPG.
RESOURCES – PRECEDENT LIBRARY 11
City of Toronto, Canada
The Mayor of London’s Peer Outreach Workers and the London Youth Assembly
Futures London Workshop, Housing Design SPG 2020
Playing Out, UK
City of Vancouver, Canada
The CNV4ME project in Vancouver (2015) is an interdepartmental project to raise and fulfill the rights of independent mobility of children and youth in the city. Strategic child-friendly footpaths and cycle paths are intended to connect child-specific amenities through the circular greenway "Green Necklace". The Green Collar improves safety by eliminating traffic hazards, while offering a range of health and wellbeing benefits in terms of encouraging active travel and reducing exposure to air pollution.
Oslo, Norway
Tirana, Albania
Flickrum, Stockholm, Sweden
Child-Friendly Rotterdam, The Netherlands
The Amazing Place, Christchurch, New Zealand
Growing Up Boulder, Colorado, US
Liveable Neighbourhoods, London, UK
Parc Rives de Seine, Paris, France
Superkilen, Copenhagen, Denmark
Superblocks, Barcelona, Spain
Aldgate Gyratory, London, UK
Brotorget Square, Bollnäs, Sweden
Freiburg, Germany
Hupisaaret Park, Oulu, Finland
Giraffe Playground, Uppsala, Sweden
The Musicon Path, Roskilde, Denmark
Bridget Joyce Square, White City, UK
Marmalade Lane, Cambridge, UK
Mehr Als Wohnen, Zurich, Switzerland
Sutherland Road, Waltham Forest, UK
Goldsmith Street, Norwich, UK
RESOURCES – GLOSSARY OF KEY TERMS
It is more spontaneous and requires greater imagination than in formal settings such as organized sports activities19. The license entails a set of defined rules such as permission to cross main roads, visit shops or cycle on pavements or roads. Jan Gehl's theory states that when there is an activity center where people 'do' things like play, other people are inspired to join the activity center, increasing the area and scope of activity22.
Covers facilities such as health insurance, early years insurance, schools, colleges and universities, community, recreational and sporting facilities, places of worship, police and other criminal justice or community safety facilities, children's play and youth and informal recreational facilities.
CONTRIBUTORS AND THANKS
Alexandra and Ainsworth Estate, Camden (London, UK) – J&L Gibbons (landscape renovation), Erect Architecture (play area renovation).
ABOUT GOOD GROWTH BY DESIGN
Ensure excellence in how the Mayor and other public sector clients hire and manage architects and other built environment professionals. They were chosen for their skill and experience in helping the Mayor support London's growth through the Good Growth by Design programme. The Mayor's Design Advocates and City Hall's Regeneration and Economic Development, Environment and Planning teams have developed research related to the implementation of the draft London Plan policy S4.
This document is a call to action for the built environment sector to join the Mayor of London in applying new design approaches to projects, with the aim of making London an inclusive city for all Londoners.
BUILT
ENVIRONMENT FOR
LONDONERS
