by Dr Sally Barber and Dr Amanda Seims
In today’s rapidly urbanising world, ensuring children have access to safe and appealing play spaces is crucial for their health, wellbeing, and development. However, opportunities for outdoor play in urban areas have declined in recent years, and access remains unequal. A recent review, incorporating evidence from the city of Bradford, UK has shed light on innovative approaches to address these challenges and create more child-friendly urban environments, moving beyond traditional play space design and equipment.
Research, conducted as part of the Play in Urban Spaces for Health (PUSH) project, examined how outdoor play is considered in local policies and strategies in Bradford, and how these policies and strategies are implemented, particularly within regeneration projects. Through interviews with strategic leaders and analysis of policy documents, the study revealed a strong commitment to providing high-quality, safe, and inclusive outdoor play spaces. Leaders demonstrated knowledge of design principles to embed play into built-up urban spaces, thinking beyond traditional playground spaces and equipment, and were highly motivated to influence children’s play opportunities in the urban built environment. Despite this, the lack of a national driver for play limits the implementation of policy and the remit of strategic leads. A national play strategy to prioritise children’s rights to play in all policy-making, and legally require local authorities to ensure sufficient play opportunities for children would address this, as recently proposed by the Children’s Commissioner and Play England.
Evidence from children, young people and parents in Bradford highlighted the need to ensure spaces: are high quality, appealing, and maintained, keep children safe from harm, and welcome children playing. Approaches to support this include improved stewardship of public spaces, adult presence, traffic reduction, greater enforcement of current laws around dog ownership and control, and design features and signage that clearly ‘invite’ play. This emphasises the need to involve children and young people when designing public spaces for play.
The importance of children’s voices and involvement in decision-making was evident within local policy and strategy, however national and local action, such as consideration of the additional time and resource this takes, is needed to ensure its implementation. Bradford has taken significant steps to involve children and young people in the planning and design of play spaces, particularly within projects delivered in partnership with external organisations. For example, the JU:MP children’s physical activity programme, funded by Sport England, worked with local organisations and the Bradford Metropolitan District Council to develop three new green spaces and enhance nine existing ones through in-depth community engagement. Around 270 children were directly involved in workshops and events through creative participatory methods, influencing the design of these spaces.
A particularly innovative aspect of the work in Bradford was the focus on addressing inequalities in play space access and use, particularly within those areas where access to safe and appealing spaces for play is limited. Recognising that older/teenage girls are less likely to use parks than their male peers, JU:MP prioritised this group in its most recent green space developments. Thirty-five adolescent girls aged 11-15 years co-designed green spaces in their neighbourhoods, working directly with landscape architects to create spaces that better met their needs and preferences.
The outcome of this co-design approach has been substantial. The girls reported enjoying the creative process, feeling listened to, and taking pride in the difference they made for their community. The process also enhanced the skills of the landscape architects, who reported improving their subsequent community consultations based on this experience.
Whilst Bradford’s approach shows commitment to supporting children’s outdoor play, like many other cities it is operating in an environment of limited finances and capacity to develop and maintain spaces. The move from traditional play equipment to natural materials is an approach being used to reduce cost of repairs. Furthermore city planners face external pressure from housing developers where economic viability in the most deprived areas (where opportunities for safe outdoor play space are typically limited), may be prioritised over the provision of high-quality play spaces within developments. The involvement of public health in the planning process to advise on high-quality and inclusive play space provision and the recent development of a local design code to facilitate this within housing developments help to address this issue.
For researchers and health professionals, this learning from Bradford provides valuable insights into effective strategies for creating child-friendly urban environments. It demonstrates the power of community engagement, co-design, and policy integration in improving play opportunities for children. Looking to the future, with an estimated 70% of children globally expected to live in urban areas by 2050, cities must ensure their public spaces consider the needs of children and young people.
The work in Bradford serves as an inspiring example of how cities can prioritise children’s play and involvement in urban planning. By implementing similar approaches and pushing for supportive policies, we can work towards creating urban environments that truly support the health and wellbeing of all children and young people.
For further information on co-designed greenspace development in Bradford please visit:
JU:MP The Story So Far – Green Space Development
Better Start Bradford: Better Place
Bradford: Developing a Healthy Green City
The Joy of Co-design (the Manningham Snicket project)
Acknowledgements:
- The PUSH project was funded through NIHR programme development grant (NIHR 204232) and supported by the UK Prevention Research Partnership (MR/S037527/1) the NIHR Yorkshire and Humber Applied Research Collaboration and NIHR Bristol Biomedical Research Collaboration.
- The project was jointly delivered by Bradford Institute for Health Research (BIHR) and University College London (Professor Claire Cameron, Dr Hanan Hauari, Emily Ranken, Professor Nicola Christie, Dr Emily Midouhas, and Professor Jo Van Herwegen) and supported by Laurie Ewles (Research and Implementation Assistant BIHR). We would also like to thank all of the participants who gave up their time to take part in this research, and community organisations, and schools in Bradford and Tower Hamlets who supported the recruitment and data collection process.
