Exploring Essex Parks: Gendering Green Space for Young People

This report seeks to support professionals working in parks and green spaces to make decisions about designing those spaces to help young women and gender-diverse young people feel safe and included. For many decades, organisations like Fields in Trust and Sports England have provided authoritative and practical guidance to local authorities, planners, park professionals, and others working in the built environment, to support them to create parks and green spaces that work well for their local communities. But despite this, research shows that many young people, particularly young women and gender diverse young people, do not feel welcome, comfortable, or safe in their local parks and green spaces. They often feel they do not have a say about or sense of belonging in parks and green spaces which stops them from benefiting from them. Drawing on extensive engagement over many months with young people in Essex, the intention of this report is to provide inspiration for what could be included by way of “informal play areas” as an alternative or additional to a MUGA or skatepark; and prove a constructive supplement to existing guidance, to support local authorities to address the current gender imbalance in park provision for teenagers. This report was prepared in partnership with our amazing colleagues at Social Place, www.social-place.org and Chelmsford City and Maldon District Council.