SAFER PARKS: Improving access for women and girls
A good city is an inclusive city. When women and girls feel safe and can fully utilise urban amenities, these spaces become safer and more inclusive for all user groups. In increasingly dense cities, quality urban parks serve as vital green counterpoints to built-up areas, making their accessibility for everyone more crucial than ever.
The stark reality is: women feel three times less safe in parks during the day compared to men, rising to four out of five women feeling unsafe at night. These safety concerns represent the biggest barrier preventing women and girls from enjoying the substantial physical and mental health benefits that parks offer.
The Safer Parks Consortium – comprising Keep Britain Tidy, Make Space for Girls, University of Leeds, and West Yorkshire Combined Authority – has developed evidence-based guidance addressing this critical issue. Their 2023 publication “SAFER PARKS: Improving access for women and girls” introduces ten core principles organised around three key themes:
Eyes on the Park focuses on increasing human presence through strategic activation. This includes positioning popular facilities in busy areas, creating circular walking routes, and ensuring visible staff presence, particularly during winter afternoons when women feel most vulnerable.
Awareness addresses design elements that enhance women’s ability to assess their surroundings. Key interventions include maintaining low shrubs with high tree canopies for clear sightlines, ensuring wide and visible exits, implementing even lighting with warm colours, and creating clear wayfinding systems.
Inclusion emphasises involving diverse groups of women and girls in design processes. This encompasses creating spaces that signal belonging, maintaining high standards of cleanliness and maintenance, and ensuring safe access routes to and through parks.
The research highlighted a significant perception gap: 89% of professionals considered parks safe for women and girls, compared to only 37% of women and 22% of girls themselves. This disconnect underscores the importance of incorporating female perspectives in planning and design processes.
The guide features beautiful artwork by Harper Perry and Josie Brookes, making complex concepts accessible through clear visual communication. Practical implementation ranges from quick wins – such as improving lighting and removing overgrown vegetation – to larger interventions like facility redesign and programming changes.
Success measurement involves collecting gender-disaggregated data on park usage and safety perceptions, moving beyond traditional crime statistics to capture the daily experiences that deter women and girls from using public spaces.
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