Why zoning is one of the most effective ways to create parks where teenage girls feel welcome - and why offering a choice of spaces makes parks better for everyone.

What can we learn from one of the world's most liveable cities? In Copenhagen, teenage girls shared their experiences of public space with architects, planners and designers, revealing that many of the challenges they face are the same as those experienced by girls across the UK.

OK, we admit that the title of this blog might be a tiny bit tongue in cheek, given we’re blogging about detailed changes to technical planning policy documents that some might consider -ahem- a little dry. But it is MSFG 5th birthday and we are having fun! We’re reflecting on our ongoing work to campaign for national policy changes that support more inclusive public spaces for teenage girls. Most recently, we submitted our response to the Government’s consultation on the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), which guides how local authorities plan and design developments. While we strongly believe that local authorities should shape spaces based on local needs and input from girls themselves, we’re calling for the NPPF to include a clear prompt to consider age and gender in public space design. We remain committed to long-term change and will continue working with policymakers and partners to ensure teenage girls are better represented in the design of the spaces they use.

Make Space for Girls works to ensure parks and public spaces are designed to include and empower teenage girls. Through community engagement, advocacy, and our new three-year strategy, we aim to influence policy and promote inclusive design. We're delighted to share a little bit more about what we have been up to over the last 18 months, and share some exciting news about the future.

We know that research in 2023 showed that while 89% of park professionals thought parks were safe for women and girls, only 22% of teenage girls felt the same. This gap has to close if we are going to succeed in creating parks where teenage girls and gender diverse young people want to play and hang out. In this blog we talk about the launch of the second edition of guidance designed to help those involved in designing, creating, managing and activating parks close this gap.

Young women from Lancaster West Estate co-designed proposals for a more inclusive community, highlighting the power of deep engagement to amplify their voices and shape future housing and design conversations.

Your Parks Bristol and Bath have co-designed a new area at Brickfields Park in Bath with the voices of teenage girls at its core. Their input has played a central role in shaping the future of this community space. To understand what young people wanted from the park, Your Parks BB carried out a consultation and worked with Make Space for Girls early on to address the specific needs of teenage girls.

A new space in Rowntree Park, York has been created in partnership with local girls. Led by a community group rather than developers or councils, this initiative gave local girls a voice in shaping a space that truly works for them. Through two years of engagement, they helped design an area that meets their needs- somewhere to sit, climb, swing, and simply be themselves. The result? A welcoming, inclusive space that is already making a huge difference - not just for teenage girls, but for the entire community.

In this guest blog, Kuljeet Sibia, architect and senior design manager explains why this innovative project by the London Legacy Development Corporation matters to her.

Jemma Clark's MSc research project took on a really important question for Make Space for Girls, what is really happening in teenage spaces? And what in particular works for girls? In this blog, she shares some details of her findings, in a report which was short-listed for the RPTI Research Excellence Student Award.

The Equality Act is really important for our work at Make Space for Girls. If applied properly, it should require planners and other decision makers to consider the results of their decisions on a wide range of marginalised groups - including teenage girls. A key part of that is the use of Equality Impact Assessments. In this guest blog, Sophie Stanton explains how these could be made to work better.

For this blog, we've invited Dr Jenny Wood and Anna Gaffney from A Place In Childhood to talk about some of the innovative co-creating work they've been doing with young people around place and neighbourhoods.

A look at some research with teenage girls and photos which shows how important safety is for park access

LSE Cities made a film about the work we’ve been doing with them and Dr Julia King, focussing on the project in Crewe and the voices of the girls and young women there.

This blog is the story of a collaboration between five passionate female social impact entrepreneurs to address the pressing issues that we all feel strongly about, surrounding gender inequality in public spaces to address inequality in public spaces for girls in Cape Town. Two of them were already friends of the charity. Joke Quintens has been running the excellent Girls Make the City project in Belgium, and Tiisetso Mofokeng has written blogs for us before. Tiisetso explains what their new project is about.

Barcelona has already done a lot of interesting work in creating spaces and places that work better for girls and for women too. In this blog, Laia Corrales gives us a tour of some newer play spaces which have been designed with inclusivity in mind

Friends of Rowntree Park ran a really successful programme for teenage girls - this is how they did it, and on a tiny budget too.

Over the last couple of years, we've been talking to Tim Morton of St Matthew's Big Local in Leicester about their work and how they can include the whole community by engaging with teenage girls. And then he told us how a simple piece of activation worked for one girl - as they can both explain. Tim first.