ADD2619 Women, girls and gender diverse people’s safety in public realm – Phase 2

1.1 The Good Growth by Design (GGbD) programme brings together a range of activities to help shape London’s growth and deliver high quality, inclusive and sustainable design. ‘Public London’ is a significant part of the programme, using policy, guidance and advocacy to promote quality and inclusivity across London’s public realm. As recognised in the London Plan, all public realm should be inclusive and accessible to all Londoners.

1.2 Following the murders of Sarah Everard and Sabina Nessa, there is a crisis in women, girls and gender diverse people’s sense of safety in the public realm. The Mayor is supporting a number of initiatives that address this in broader terms including the MOPAC-led Violence Against Women and Girls strategy, the 24 hour London team-led Women's Night Safety Charter and Night Time Strategy and through the work of the Violence Reduction Unit.

1.3 The Mayor is supporting delivery of new and improved public spaces through a number of programmes. This GGbD research provides an opportunity to test and prototype new approaches which embed the requirements of women and girls, using Mayors Design Advocate (MDA) input.

1.4 In this context, the GLA Regeneration team are undertaking a programme of research through GGbD to demonstrate and innovate in how design impacts safety in public spaces. New guidance is in development to support design reviewers, designers, planners and the development community more broadly to better engage and integrate the needs of women, girls and gender diverse people over a series of three phases. This involves a range of place-based testing and action research as well as reviewing best-practice through three phases of work. Phase 1 is complete, with this approval relating to phase 2, task A:

1.5 Phase 1 of this research is complete (see link) and established guiding principles on understanding safety and gender inclusive thinking in public realm design. It created a toolkit of questions for the sector to innovate in engagement practices to support gender inclusive designs, and to support MDAs in design review processes. Phase 1 had a budget of £10,000 approved via DAR (DAR_05_Women and Girls) from the GGbD budget approved in MD2818.

1.6 Phase 1 highlighted the importance of experimentation to test different methods of participation and engagement of women, girls and gender diverse people in the design, production, programming and occupation of public space. Phase 2 will create room for that experimentation with the support of MDAs (task A) and the research study (tasks B and C).

1.7 It will use placed based opportunities to test and innovate in this arena through MDA design reviews with a series of live public realm projects in delivery across London. This will entail working with specific projects (as opposed to types of public space) to understand the specific constraints and opportunities associated with London contexts, and to enable a more rigorous testing of the phase 1 questions toolkit within a live delivery context.

1.8 The design reviews will test the toolkit of questions from phase 1 and document these projects as a bank of London-based case studies that demonstrate best practice for designing safe and gender inclusive public space. The reviews will vary from project to project but may focus on a particular stage of development or address the life cycle of the project (for example brief development, co-design workshops, 1:1 sessions, site visits etc).

1.9 This approval requests use of £14,500 of the GGbD budget (approved by MD2818 GGbD and MDAs) to fund the phase 2 task A design reviews with MDAs (as highlighted in the table above). The total budget for phase 2 is £64,500 with the remaining £50,000 for tasks B and C being funded separately via the MD3057 Growing Place Fund revenue to support regeneration.

1.10 This phase of work will build on previous Public London research such as GGbD Expanding London’s Public Realm and the Public London Charter, as well as interrelated themes with other on-going GGbD research inquiries:

i. Commissioning Quality

ii. Design Review 

iii. Supporting Diversity

iv. Child Friendly Cities

v. Place shaping Capacity

vi. Accessible London – currently in development

2.1 The strategic outcomes of the MDA project reviews and associated research study are as follows:

i. support delivery of more innovative and inclusive public space projects which help deliver the Mayor’s vision for Good Growth and offer the highest level of public access

ii. promote quality and inclusion in the built environment addressing a range of public space typologies, locations and contexts

iii. influence planning applications coming forward to improve how developments address participation of women, girls and gender diverse people in designing, building and programming public space

iv. reflect on phase 1 questions and their success in encouraging experimentation in participation and affecting perceptions of safety in public spaces and to use this to inform future phases

3.1 Under section 149 of the Equality Act 2010, the GLA is subject to a public-sector equality duty (“the Duty”) and must have due regard to the need to (i) eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation; (ii) advance equality of opportunity between people who share a relevant protected characteristic and those who do not; and (iii) foster good relations between people who share a relevant protected characteristic and those who do not. Protected characteristics under section 149 of the Equality Act are age, disability, gender re-assignment, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, and marriage or civil partnership status.

3.2 Throughout the process relating to the approvals sought in this decision form, due regard has been had to the legislation outlined above. Through the preparation of the programme and all research and communication strands, the GLA will require partners to evaluate the potential impacts regarding protected characteristic groups. Any project must minimise disadvantages to all protected characteristic groups within society.

3.3 As recognised in the draft new London Plan and the GGbD research programme, all public space should be inclusive and accessible to all Londoners. This research aims to ensure that public realm coming forward is reaching this requirement and will provide guidance and demonstrate best practice to inform this.

3.4 The GGbD programme has been progressive in advocating for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in the built environment. A fundamental objective of the programme is addressing the role of design in forming a more inclusive city, both through the built environment itself and the make-up of the designers, planners and decision makers who are active in city-making.

3.5 The MDA involvement that this decision form sets out, directly supports more inclusive public space in London, through in depth understanding of the issues that support women, girls and gender diverse people’s sense of safety in public space and through supporting live projects to put these principles into practice.

3.6 The MDA sounding board brought together to guide this project are experts from the field of public realm, providing particular guidance on the inclusion and consideration of groups protected by the Equality Act in the research. The Mayor’s Peer Outreach Workers will also be involved in the development of phase 2 and as part of the GLA family client team.

3.7 Recognition of intersectionality is key to the entirety of the research programme, and therefore the research study consultants are required to bring trans and gender diversity expertise and data collection skills to their team to support the study.

4.1 Phase 2 presents numerous risks in terms of timeline, budget constraints and effective management across a series of live projects. Each project has its own live constraints that are open to change across the course of phase 2. Each will also have its own wide network of stakeholders that need to be incorporated into the design review process where relevant. The MDA design reviews will need to respond flexibly to live projects and their constraints.

4.2 Efficient management of input and feedback from the GLA family client team and MDAs will be key. The GLA family client team is wide ranging and links directly into live work such as the Womens Night Safety Charter work and other key TfL and GLA related programmes which will be referenced and integrated into this work. Regular meetings with the WNSC working group are in place and wider client team will be arranged by the GLA regeneration team. Regular involvement of the MDA sounding board will also ensure up-to-date sector knowledge and future proofing is considered appropriately.

4.3 There are links with other Mayoral strategies and priorities such as:

i. The Good Growth Fund which funds public ream delivery. The research will support how the ‘enhance public space’ strategy of the GGF is assessed and delivered through the fund. It will inform the evidence base for the GGF actions of developing civic infrastructure, enhancing public space and sharing culture and will align with funding ambitions to promote quality and inclusion in the built environment, supporting the role of good design in an increasingly dense city.

ii. The Womens Night Safety Charter which is part of the Mayor’s Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy and London’s commitment to the UN Women Safe Cities and Safe Public Spaces global initiative. This work supports signatories to meet pledge 7 of the charter to “design your public spaces and work places to make them safer for women at night”.

iii. The 24 hour team’s Night Time Enterprise Zone and night time strategy guidance.

4.4 There are no conflicts of interest to declare from those involved in the drafting or clearance of this   decision form.

5.1 Funding of up to £14,500 is required for the Good Growth by Design Programme. The funds will pay for the time of the Mayor’s Design Advocates to research how design impacts safety in public spaces for women, girls and gender diverse people.

5.2 It is anticipated the expenditure will take place over two financial years – 2022-23 and 2023-24. As the latter year’s budget is yet to be confirmed the spend for that year will be subject to formal approval via the GLA’s budget setting process. However, sufficient headroom exists within the indicative budget allocated to the Planning and Regeneration unit where this expenditure will be contained.